Glimmers of Glass
by EmmaSavant
Summary: (Glimmers Trilogy #1) When Olivia Feye's boss is hospitalized after a flying pumpkin carriage accident, Olivia is thrust into the middle of a faerie godmothering case: Elle, a Portland-dwelling barista whose plans don't include an enchanted prom or Prince Charming.
1. Chapter 1

The door burst open, hitting the wall like a gunshot. The stack of papers fell from my hands to the polished wood floor.

Imogen stopped in the doorway, her hands outstretched against the elaborately carved frame.

"Tabitha is in the hospital."

The reaction was immediate and as dramatic as she'd probably hoped. My boss, Lorinda, stepped out of her office, a large conch shell pressed to her ear and her hand cupped over its opening. She uncovered it long enough to say, "Barb, let me call you back," and then waved Imogen into the room. The two Junior Godmothers in the corner, Aster and Maybelle, both stared from around the edges of their cubicles. Rosemary, a Faerie Godmother, rolled out of her office on a wheeled chair.

Imogen shrugged, her eyes scanning past Lorinda and across the room. She locked onto where I knelt, gathering the papers I'd dropped, then turned her attention back to our boss. "Flying accident," she said. "You know that magic carpet she always rides? Well, this morning, some drunk idiot in one of those trendy pumpkin carriages plowed into her. Broke her arm and who knows what else and knocked her fifty feet out of the air. Luckily a wizard was nearby who magicked her up before she fell into past the invisibility barrier and into traffic or she'd have been run over and we'd have had a hell of a time tracking down all the Humdrums who needed memory wipes."

Lorinda pursed her lips at the _hell_ but didn't interrupt until Imogen had finished. "Someone ought to outlaw those carriages," she said. "They're impossible to control. Flying gourds, really."

"Only in Portland would they be a thing," Imogen said. She craned her neck to look around Lorinda and called across the room to me, "She's going to be out for months. They said they can patch her up, but it's going to take time."

Lorinda turned to me, too, and I didn't like the look in her eyes. She was trying to figure out what to do with me, and I never liked when other people tried to decide what to do with me.

"You'll have to reassign her case," I said, clambering to my feet. "Or drop it. We hadn't started on this next one."

Tabitha was my supervisor. She was a Faerie Godmother, and I was her intern. Her now-useless intern, and that thought didn't bother me as much as it should have. This was a freak accident, and even my dad couldn't throw that big of a tantrum if I got laid off for something as crazy as that. But Lorinda's narrowed eyes didn't exactly said "laid off."

Imogen's eyes darting back and forth from Lorinda's expression to my face. I tried to arrange my features into something mournful. I felt genuinely bad for Tabitha, of course. But the thought of getting out of this job and onto something that might actually be useful later in life made a hope I couldn't control bubble up inside me.

"We can't afford that," Lorinda said at last. She ran a hand across her chin and up her cheek, then blew out a giant sigh and said, "We're already coming in under projections, thanks to the Goblin King."

The Goblin King had just dropped us as his daughter's matchmaker after discovering the girl had already secretly married a kid from Ohio. Lorinda had been counting on that job bringing in a good chunk of gold. The cases for royalty always did. With that gone, she'd been poking the budget until it cried to make all the numbers line up for the year.

Unfortunately, her next words were even worse than her daily rant about that case. She pointed at me with her seashell. "How many cases have you shadowed now?"

I had a bad feeling about where this conversation was headed.

"Four," I said carefully. "But I didn't do much. Just shadowed and kept records."

"That'll have to be good enough," Lorinda said. "The job's yours. Get the paperwork started."

She nodded once at me as though that wrapped it all up. I clutched the papers tightly to my chest. "Hold on," I said. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"It'll have to be good enough," Lorinda said. She was already turning around and heading back to her office. Her pale purple suit made her look like a chubby sprig of lilac. "I can't hire anyone else on such short notice. You're the best we've got."

She really was desperate. No one in their right mind would pass this job off to a lowly summer intern, let alone me. I didn't even get the job because of my sterling qualifications or enthusiasm for the noble calling of faerie godmothering. Nope: I got it because my dad was on the Grand Council of Magical Beings for the City of Portland and, as if being on the Council wasn't enough, a voting member of the Greater Pacific Northwest Magical Alliance. My dad was a big deal. Whatever he said, went, and that applied even if it was completely opposite to how I'd planned my junior year of high school would go.

I wanted to work in botany and conservation, not godmothering. I wanted to go to a nice Humdrum college, study nice Humdrum plants, and settle down to a nice, normal life, where I wasn't the daughter of Reginald and Marigold Feye and the poster child for the bright future of the magical community. That didn't seem like too much to ask, especially when my dad was constantly reminding me that most Humdrums would kill to have a piece of my world. Fine, I thought. Let them have it. I'd trade any day.

I rubbed the spot between my eyes, pushing my glasses down and staring across the room. The view was just as clear without the glasses, but it was made busy by the shimmers of magic everywhere. Lorinda, back in her office, glimmered enough through the doorway to make it look like some kind of sci-fi anomaly was happening in there. Amity, crossing the room to the printer, was covered in a haze of soft pearl sparkles. And Imogen, standing right in front of me, pulsed warm and gold. I shoved the glasses up, and the warm haze around her body disappeared.

"Congrats," she said mildly.

I stared at her, lost for words, then groaned loudly, spun on my heel, and marched back to my cubicle. She followed and made herself at home, perched atop my desk.

"I know you're freaking out," she said.

"I'm not 'freaking out'—" I said, but fell silent as she held up a hand to cut me off.

"I know you're freaking out," she repeated. "Like, completely freaking out, and I can tell because your hair just got even frizzier than usual and you're breathing like you just got asked to fight a dragon or something."

"How is this not a dragon?" I hissed, leaning forward in my chair. "Is she crazy? I'm an _intern. _A really unenthusiastic intern."

"And Lorinda's desperate," Imogen said. "Woman, it's your lucky day. You should be doing frigging cartwheels."

I could think of a hundred things I'd rather be doing than cartwheels. Throwing up, for one. Hexing my boss, for another. But if I had to choose, flat-out cursing the idiot who'd thought drinking, driving, and incapacitating Tabitha was a good idea was floating pretty high near the top of the list. I fingered the magic wand that held my frizzy bun together on the back of my head, wishing the intoxicated moron was here right now to see just what kind of impressive spells I'd learned in my five months at Wishes Fulfilled, Inc. I may not be experienced enough to handle Tabitha's next case on my own, but I sure as spitting was experienced enough to turn that guy into a newt.

Imogen seemed to have some idea of what was going on in my mind, because she put her hand over mine and firmly moved it away from my glorified hair stick. "Slow down there, tiger," she said. "Let's think about this like grownups."

"I'm not a grownup," I said. "That's the point. Is this even legal?"

Imogen raised one perfectly formed eyebrow at me and shook her head like I was the biggest lost cause she'd ever seen. "Do you have any idea what I would give for a chance like the one you just got?" she said.

"You want to transfer?" I said. "The job's yours."

Imogen rolled her eyes at me. She worked as an Assistant Junior Proctor in the Department of Tests &amp; Quests, adjacent to ours in both location and purpose. Our jobs were similar, with the main difference being that she loved hers and I was lukewarm about mine at best.

I was technically in training to be a Faerie Godparent. Proctors like Imogen were the other guys from fairy tales who dressed up as old beggar ladies or birds with broken wings to test Heroes' moral character, and then rewarded them with all sorts of faerie presents if they showed compassion or bravery or whatever super-trait they were being tested for. Both jobs had been around since the dawn of time, and both jobs, I thought, sucked.

As my little brother Daniel had once put it, living as Glimmers in a Humdrum world that glorified our lives would be the equivalent of Humdrums living in a world where a whole thrilling mythology had sprung up around lawyers and administrative assistants, with children's cartoons being made about "that one time they met that pressing deadline!" or "what happened when the doctor successfully treated his patient for a routine sprained ankle!"

In this case, the story would be "how that one intern totally screwed over her company and ruined her reputation by having absolutely no idea what she was doing!" I couldn't wait to see the animated musical.

Imogen sighed, then hopped off my desk, grabbed my arm, and dragged me back out of my cubicle to the window across the room. It looked down on the street below and the park across the street. And there, right in front of us, where we could see it every time we came to work, left work, or got up to stretch our legs, was the Oracle's Fountain. A car drove by, totally unaware of the magic leaking out towards it.

"Think about it," Imogen said in an undertone to me. She shook my arm gently, like she was trying to wake me up. "You pull this off, and you get to go be rewarded by the Oracle."

This wasn't playing fair. Everyone wanted to be rewarded by the Oracle. The mysterious being who lived in the Oracle's Fountain was one of the arbiters of our world, second only to the elusive Faerie Queen. She emerged from the Fountain on rare occasions, but communicated through the water and her attendant sprites to applaud and bless the efforts of anyone who worked to improve the Glimmering world, bring more and truer love into the world, and help Heroes, Heroines, and other Archetypes find the right resolutions to their Stories.

I was working in one of the only fields in the entire magical world that got to interact with the Oracle on a regular basis.

I'd seen the moment four times now from this window, once for each case Tabitha had completed with me as her assistant. Tabitha had gotten the right princess married to the right wizard, helped a Heroine reach the end of her Quest in one piece, taught a Hero how to stop a forest witch who was getting a little too big for her britches, and made sure a pair of young faeries in love found each other just as the moon waxed full. And each time, at midnight, when the sky was dark and the city was silent, she stood before the Oracle and waited for judgment. Every time, the Oracle had been pleased, and the Fountain's water had filled with a generous heap of golden coins. These coins paid the bills, but they were more than that: They were validation, a sign that she—that _we_—had done well.

Of course I had pictured myself standing there in her place, waiting for the Oracle to tell me I had made the world a better place in a way that mattered. Even an aspiring biologist couldn't help those daydreams. But it was completely unfair of Imoen to bring that up just now.

I pressed my fingertips to the space between my forehead, just a smidge above the bridge of the glasses that let me pretend that this wasn't my reality. I could feel a stress headache forming. "Imogen," I said.

"Think about it," she said.

I already was. My mind was filled with the image of me, standing in front of the Oracle, watching as glinting gold began to surface through the dark blue water in an undeniable message that I had succeeded. It was proof that just once, I had done something on my own and actually deserved to be part of this world. I didn't want to be part of this world. I wanted to study conservation in Africa and research plants in the Amazon rainforest, far away from godmothers and spells and the Council. But knowing I could belong if I wanted to?

"I guess a trial period couldn't hurt," I said.

"Yay!" Imogen shouted, her voice breaking through the hush in the room.

I blew a long puff of air toward the stupid window as a sinking feeling started to gather in my stomach.

"I am so going to regret this," I said.


	2. Chapter 2

Living as a Glimmer in a Humdrum world was a constant act of subterfuge. I went to intern at Wishes Fulfilled and pretended I was working as an usher in the performing arts center that took up most of the building downstairs. I went to the annual Oregon Forest Faeries Festival and pretended my parents were shipping me off to summer camp in Maryland. Today, I looked at my godmothering case file in study hall and pretended I was reading an essay and making important notes in the margins.

A photograph of a pretty girl with a blond ponytail, aquamarine T-shirt, and sardonic expression had been paperclipped to the first page inside the purple folder that held the details.

_Client Name: Elle Ashland_

_Age: 17_

_Occupation: Student, barista_

_Hiring client: Greg Ashland (father)_

_Case summary: Elle is in her senior year of high school and struggling to fit in. Father requests Faerie Godmother arrange for his daughter to attend prom with the most popular boy at her high school. Father expresses wish for daughter to __"__forget her day-to-day life for a while and get swept up in the romance of a great teen movie.__" _

I held back a snort.

_Elle__'__s father, Greg, is a non-magical being (hereafter __"__Humdrum__"__). Her deceased mother, Genevieve, was an enchantress from the Portland area. Elle__'__s parents jointly made the decision to raise Elle in the Humdrum world and Elle knows nothing about her ethnic background. Hiring client has expressed a strong desire to maintain this lack of awareness, citing Elle__'__s fragile emotional health and volatile mood swings, which he fears could be triggered by the shock of learning about the magical world._

Like all faeries, I had a couple gifts, of which empathy was—if not the greatest—not the least. I looked at her photograph for a moment and waited for my initial impression to be confirmed by an even stronger following impression: Whoever this girl was, "fragile" was not the first word I'd use to describe her.

_Objective: Arrange for Elle to attend prom with the most popular boy at her high school._

_Recommendations: Full aesthetics, high drama._

_Relevant Archetype (subject to change at Godmother__'__s discretion): Cinderella_

After that was a two-page essay from Greg on why he wanted his daughter's dreams to come true. I scanned it, but there was nothing new there. Everyone wanted their own dreams to come true, and most people wanted the same for their kids. It was followed by the usual contracts, waivers, and personal details. I jumped ahead to these, trying to figure out where this Elle person lived. I found the name of her school immediately. The letters jumped out at me: the newly-opened Lincoln Charter School, the very one I happened to be sitting in.

"Psst," a voice said to my right. Imogen bounced her foot into the aisle between the desks. I looked down. A slip of paper had appeared out of nowhere onto my desk.

_Omg. Have you seen the new guy?_

I stared hard at the paper, then, when the _no_ I wanted to send back was clearly in my mind, touched my hand to the magic wand tucked into my hair. That was enough. The paper disappeared and reappeared on Imogen's desk. She wiggled her butt in the uncomfortable chair, barely suppressed excitement all over her face.

Imogen's face was always just a smidge too expressive. I loved this about her. She would have been too pretty if it weren't for the odd wrinkled nose or puffed-out cheeks.

I glanced at the clock, which showed I had fifteen minutes left. I went back to the essay and actually read it. It was obviously why the Processing Division had pegged this one as a Cinderella. Elle's mom had died from pneumonia when she was nine, and her father remarried when Elle was twelve. She even had two stepsisters, and now a faerie godmother was being called in to help to get her to what was basically a ball. It was almost too easy, and I was grateful. Only a crazy person would have any illusions about this going well, but if it were as open-and-shut as it looked, at least I wouldn't have the chance to screw her Story up too badly.

And lucky for me, as Archetypes went, Cinderellas were easy. Each Archetypes had been unearthed and refined over thousands of years of faerie godmothering. It was true that history repeated itself. The Sleeping Beauties kinda sat their stories out while we arranged everything for them. The Jacks conquered their beanstalks. And the Cinderellas went to the ball and met a nice guy (or girl). When things went well, they lived out their Stories according to plan and everyone lived happily ever after. When things went poorly… Well, I wouldn't think about that until I had to.

The paper appeared back on my desk. _Super cute. From Colorado. He__'__s in English with us._

I was just in the middle of gathering my mental focus for a reply when the bell rang. I tapped the handle of my wand and the paper disappeared as we gathered our books and folders and headed into the hallway together.

"I hate pre-calc," she said a few minutes later, slamming her hand onto some poor kid's locker for dramatic emphasis. The clang it should have made was lost in the noise of the crowded hallway.

"I thought you liked math," I said.

"I did," Imogen said. "Until I ended up in Creeper McGee's class. God, I swear he takes night classes in obfuscation."

"Nice word," I said.

She flashed a sparkling smile at me. "Thanks." I knew better than to take her seriously. Imogen was good at everything, from math to twenty-dollar words to disguising herself with the most flawless glamours I'd ever seen someone our age manage. The only thing that made her bearable was that she didn't realize any of this. She wasn't humble, exactly, but she was insecure, and that somehow made it a lot easier to be her best friend. If she'd been anything like her older sisters—gorgeous, talented, _and_ aware of their myriad perfections—I didn't think I'd be able to pull it off no matter how much I loved her.

I stopped at my locker and stored Elle's folder safely in between my world history textbook and my worn-out copy of _Field Guide to Plants &amp; Herbs of the Pacific Northwest._ The purple folder sat there, looking innocent as I slammed the door shut, but I knew it would be ready to pounce the second I opened the locker again. I wished it would just disappear while I was in class.

"I don't know what Lorinda thinks she's doing," I told Imogen for the fifteenth time. "She's crazy. I don't even know if it's legal to hand a job like this off to someone who isn't legally an adult."

"Because you're totally going to be able to get that one into court," Imogen said.

And of course, she was right. Unless I went through the magical system—which had virtually no laws about child labor, given that most Glimmers wanted to be involved from the moment they were born—I wouldn't be able to get a Humdrum lawyer or judge to even _see_ Wishes Fulfilled, let alone prosecute its Faerie Godparenting Division

"Don't get all depressed about it now," Imogen said, taking my arm and steering me past a crowd of slow-moving guys in baggy pants and toward our English classroom. "You're not at work right now. Deep breaths. Let the stress go. Remember all the good things in the world, like the cute new guy and how you're going to go wing shopping with me after school."

This wasn't the most motivating thing ever. As a faerie, Imogen neither had nor needed wings, but it was fashionable in magical circles to wear an item that marked you as being part of your own special heritage, and wings were hot for faeries. Some new underage club was opening up downtown, open to everyone but hosting special nights for Glimmers, and Imogen was determined to appear in full force. I knew she'd drag me along with her, but I'd told her I was not going to be wearing a set of gossamer wings on my back like it was Halloween. She remembered and added, "Also we can go get dinner and stop at Powell's Books."

That was more like it. I tipped an imaginary hat to her as we walked into our English class.

Suddenly, Imogen was all animation. "Hey!" she called out. Her enthusiasm seemed to be directed toward the back of the room at a lanky, dark-haired guy who slouched in his seat, playing a game on his phone with longish hair dangling into his eyes. He looked up as Imogen's voice floated toward him. She sat on a desk beside his and said, "Hi! So glad you found the room."

"Hard to miss," he said, letting the phone drop to his lap and leaning back in his seat.

Imogen bit her lip in the attractive way only she could manage—I looked like a squirrel when I tried it—and kicked her foot toward me. I stood in the aisle, staring at the "cute new guy."

"This," Imogen said, proudly flourishing her hand toward him, while I gaped at his face, "is Lucas."

"Oh my god!" I said. "What are you doing here?" His eyebrows shot straight up and he stared right back, his expression expansive and, I thought, pleased.

"Olivia!" he said. A grin spread across his features.

"Wait," Imogen said, leaning back on the desk and waving her fingers back and forth between us. "You two know each other?"

I wasn't quite sure how to answer. I hadn't seen him in almost three years, and his general online silence hadn't helped. He was the kind of guy who only posted a status update once every six months, usually something inane like, "Yay for tacos," which would explain why I hadn't heard he was back in Portland.

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his desk. "We were friends when we were kids," he said. "I moved to Arizona the summer before freshman year."

"When you were living in France," I explained to Imogen. The one year of middle school she'd spent abroad for her dad's job was the one year we hadn't been practically living in each other's pockets. Lucas had been my substitute Imogen that year, not quite as perfect as she was but still a pretty good friend.

"So what," I said. "You're back now?"

"Looks like it," he said.

"I can't believe you didn't let me know," I said, although I wasn't really sure why he should have. We'd been good friends once, but that had been before high school, back when I was taller than everyone else and he was a short kid with bad teeth and hair that wouldn't stay down. It still wouldn't stay down, but he'd apparently discovered hair products and braces in the last three years.

"Short notice," he said. "For me, too."

"I'm glad you're back," I said. I sounded too enthusiastic. I bit the inside of my cheek and ordered full radio silence. That only left room for an awkward pause, which he seemed not to notice.

"Me too," he said. "It's nice to see rain again."

"You came to the right place for that," Imogen said. She crossed one leg over the other until her foot was almost in his lap. "I can't believe you guys know each other! That's so crazy. Hey, you should hang out with us!" she added, like this thought had just occurred to her.

_Subtle,_ I tried to say with a look. Her look back was smug and to the point: _Don__'__t knock what works._

"Sure," Lucas said, oblivious to the silent exchange. "That'd be great. It'd be nice to, you know, actually know some people."

"No worries," Imogen said. "You'll get to know us." She winked at him, then hopped down from the desk. He had a dorky little smile on his face—the exact same smile guys always got around Imogen when she was turning on the charm. I lowered my glasses just slightly and peered over them. Only the usual golden haze of magic surrounded her. She wasn't glamouring him. That was something.

I waved a little as Imogen dragged me away to our usual seats near the window. "Oh my god," she said. "You know him. You _like_ him."

Her voice was way too loud. I flushed, imagining it carrying back up the aisle to Lucas. "I barely remember him," I whispered back. I slid into my chair and pretended to have a hard time finding the latest empty page in my notebook. Imogen didn't buy it. She leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen against the desk in time with her foot as it bounced in the aisle between us.

My house always felt sort of like a grand old library when I first walked in the door: hushed, well-maintained, and full of words nobody dared speak aloud.

I tried to slip up the stairs without making noise, but Mom stepped out of the kitchen and into the foyer wearing a frilly apron and a smile that looked a little tight around the edges. "Olivia, you're home," she said, as if I hadn't put that together yet. "Good. You can help me make the cream puff swans for tonight's dinner."

I hadn't quite forgotten about tonight's dinner, though I'd tried hard enough. Dad was bringing home some boring colleague from the Council and that meant the Feye family got to spend the evening putting on the aren't-we-just-a-big-happy-family show. I wished Daniel was in the room so we could trade exasperated glances. Daniel and I didn't always get along, but at least we could bond over our shared dislike of our parents' dinners.

"I actually have to go somewhere," I said. "For work. I've got to follow up on that big case."

I'd considered not telling anyone at home about my big assignment. But Lorinda was always trying to suck up to the Council, and she'd sent a memo to my dad with the big news the day I was assigned the case, hours before I'd even gotten home. He'd spent dinner that evening delivering a long lecture about how my work at Wishes Fulfilled reflected on the Feye family name and our heritage of magical excellence—exactly the kind of loving, unconditionally supportive message I'd hoped for.

Mom frowned and fingered the handle of her magic wand, which stuck out of her apron pocket. Faeries had stopped using those cliche wands with stars on the ends decades ago, but Mom was a traditionalist, and the handle of hers was carved with an elaborate tendril of stars.

I smiled at her and waited for judgment: The questionable freedom of getting back out of the house and checking out this Elle person, or the definite captivity of sitting in the kitchen, enchanting swan-shaped cream puffs to preen themselves and stretch their pastry wings until they were eaten.

Finally, she shrugged. "Be back by six," she said. Her mouth turned down a little, like my lack of interest had disappointed her, but what could she expect? I wasn't interested in playing assistant to her domestic goddess trophy wife. She knew that. "Why don't you take your brother with you?"

I tried to picture Daniel and I hanging out together while I stalked my new client. The picture wouldn't even form in my mind. "Yeah, no," I said. I shot a quick smile that was meant to be apologetic but probably wasn't anything like.

I knew why she was asking. But Daniel's recent detentions weren't my problem, and I was not about to ruin this case on the first day by trying to swing double duty as his babysitter.

"Fine," Mom said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Bring my ring when you come back down. I left it in my bathroom and there's no way I'll move fast enough to get this all done without a little help."

I ran up the stairs to dump my backpack in my room. In my parents' pretty sage green bathroom, I splashed my face with water and glanced in the mirror to make sure I looked at least presentable. A usual, my head looked like it was being eaten by a monster made out of dark curls, but there was next to nothing I could do about that. Titania knew I'd tried.

Mom's favorite enchanted ring, an antique gold band with a piece of quartz carved like a rose that seemed to contain every common charm under the sun all rolled into one, sat on the edge of the sink. I tossed it in the air, caught it, and then headed back downstairs with my wand wedged in my hair and Elle's case folder under my arm.

"Back at six!" Mom called after me after I handed her the ring and headed for the door. "Your dad is working till the last minute, because some idiot decided to fill a Humdrum building with poltergeist charms."

"Back at six," I repeated, but my thoughts were already back on the contents of the folder.

I had to find Elle and scope her out. Something about this case and "the romance of a great teen movie" sounded just a little too sugar-coated to be real. Most parents wanted the best for their kids, or at least that was the theory, even if I questioned it sometimes when it came to my own. But most parents didn't arrange romance for their teenager, let alone with "the most popular boy" at her school. Most parents hiring godparents were either trying to use their kids' marriages to create alliances between powerful Glimmer families or, more often, were hoping we could get the most popular guy at high school to stop trying to get into their daughter's pants. But Elle's dad apparently wanted this young Mr. Popular to have a shot.

There was something weird going on with this case. I had two hours to figure out what.


	3. Chapter 3

A faded orange paper from Elle's folder said _Pumpkin Spice _in curling brown letters. I followed the address printed at the bottom to a one-story cafe tucked in between a two brick buildings, one a three-story Lebanese restaurant and the other a two-story real estate office that looked like no one had bothered to come into work in a while. The same curling name, _Pumpkin Spice,_ repeated itself across the windows of the small building in vinyl lettering. I peered over my glasses, but no sign of magic disturbed the cozy little facade. This was a Humdrum establishment through and through. I blew out a long sigh, reminding myself to let the tension out with the air, and went in. The door's bell clanged as I entered.

Coffee, some kind of perfume, and the distinct scent of opening a spice cupboard all hit me at once, followed immediately by the impression of butterscotch-colored walls. The door opened between two windowed alcoves. Each held a delicate table and two spindly metal chairs with burnt orange cushions. Three sets of brown wraparound couches lined the right side of the room. Books and board games littered the tables that stood at their centers, and people lounged around on these with their feet propped up like they'd be there for a while.

The left side of the room was all tables, each decorated with a whimsical candle holder in the shape of a pumpkin. A long orange-cushioned bench ran along the left side of the room, and the tables were fringed on the other side by wooden chairs with tendrils of leafy vines carved on their backs. The whole place gave me the impression of just having walked straight into a piece of pumpkin bread.

At the far end of the room a counter curved around an array of shiny machines and racks of Italian syrups. A small doorway stood to the side, curtained in burnt orange and with with the word _Restrooms_ hand-painted above its arch in forest green. The _R_ was trimmed with more pumpkin vines.

These people really knew how to pick a theme and stick to it, I thought, scanning the room for anyone who looked like the sardonic blond girl in the folder. I checked out the aproned people behind the counter: a tall one with black hair and close-set eyes, and a freckled guy who looked like this was his first-ever job and he was determined to be enthusiastic about it.

"Hi!" someone shouted behind me. I jumped and smacked her hand away from my shoulder. Letting the tension go apparently hadn't worked. Imogen dodged my hand and took in the odd couple behind the counter. "No luck, then?"

"Shh," I said, realizing a second later that shushing her was ridiculous—who would have any idea what we were talking about? But I couldn't shake the paranoid feeling that I was being watched and that any second, I was going to screw up and the whole world was going to know about it. I wanted to stay as low on Elle's radar as I possibly could.

Unfortunately for me, Imogen wasn't on board. "Oh, relax," she said. She marched up to the counter. I could never put a name on the color of her hair. It wasn't auburn or Orphan-Annie orange or strawberry blond, but was instead what might happen if all those colors came together and agreed to compromise. Whatever it was, it wisped down from her messy bun and perfectly matched the _Order Here_ sign propped on the counter. "It's my first time here!" she announced to the person behind the counter. "What's good?"

The girl raised one bored black eyebrow, like she really couldn't care less, when someone emerged from behind the burnt-orange counter with a stack of disposable coffee cups in hand and said briskly. "It's all crap. The shortbread mocha cappuccino is probably as good as you're going to get."

Someone was clearly having a bad day. As soon as I saw her face, I stepped on Imogen's toe and made a coughing noise that could have meant anything. Imogen didn't need to be told.

"Let's try that, then," she said with a big smile. After glancing at me and realizing I was too busy studying Elle to come up with a drink order, she added, "Make that two. To stay."

We sat down, and I immediately took out my phone and pretended to text.

Elle was efficient. I could see that quickly. She knew exactly what she was doing and wasted no time about it. She was also impatient, slamming things around and jerking our cups around the counter like she couldn't stand to deal with them for more than a few seconds at a time. The freckled boy looked at her as if wondering whether he should help, then decided—wisely, I thought—that rearranging the slices of cheesecake in the glass-fronted display case was a better use of his time.

She walked around the counter, our drinks in hand, and set them on the table. I couldn't decide whether to look at her. Meeting meeting her eyes would commit me to this whole crazy charade. Not meeting them would mean I was missing crucial pieces of the puzzle. I settled for a quick glance up, but she kept her eyes on the cups, then the tops of our heads. "Here you go. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks!" Imogen said without about ten times too much sincerity. Elle looked at her for a second as though unsure whether Imogen was making fun of her, then forced a smile and went back behind the counter. She was wearing a dark blue _Dr. Who_ T-shirt with a blue police box printed on one shoulder blade like it was flying across her back.

Imogen waited until she was out of earshot before leaning forward and hissing, "What a piece of work. That's your client?"

"Aren't I lucky," I said. I watched her for a moment, then said, "Maybe she's just having a crappy day."

Imogen shot me a quelling glance, then closed her eyes and was very still for a moment. A self-satisfied smile appeared on her face, and then her hazel eyes snapped open and she said, "Yes, a bad day, but she's starting to feel like _all_ days are bad days." She closed her eyes again while I pondered this. On the downside, once people started thinking like that, the attitude got pretty entrenched. On the upside, a string of bad days could be interrupted, and had a tendency to make fairy tale endings actually feel like fairy tales.

Imogen's eyes opened again and she leaned back into the cushioned bench. "She's seriously fed up with her life," she said. She inhaled the layer of foam on the top of her cappuccino and added, "Girl's got some major baggage. I can't quite figure out what it is, although I'm pretty sure she hates the chick with black hair." She pointed toward the counter, not quite as discreetly as I would have liked. I squinted at the girl's name badge. It said _Mallory_ in the same swooping letters that made up the place's logo. I remembered the name, but flipped open Elle's folder just to be sure.

"That's her stepsister," I said. "The older one."

"That makes sense, then," Imogen said. "Cinderella trope, right?"

"Except I don't think this one's going to be able to talk bluebirds into doing her laundry." I blew the foamed milk across the top of my coffee and took a sip. It wasn't crap, but it wasn't anything spectacular, either.

The black-haired stepsister, Mallory, had been taking an order. Now she was left alone with Elle and the freckled boy, who I suspected wasn't going to be able to stand in between them if a fight started. It looked like one was brewing: The girls were pointedly ignoring one another, but the tension between them was so thick that even I could feel it crackling in the air between their tightly strung bodies. Imogen, whose empathetic gifts were more better than mine, leaned back in her chair and nursed her coffee. Her face wore an expression of rapt interest that she did nothing to hide.

"It's like watching cats about to spring at each other," she said, apparently fascinated. I couldn't really blame her. Sometimes, our job felt like we were being paid to watch reality TV, and even when I found it trashy I couldn't tear my eyes away.

Mallory glanced at Elle, then went back to leaning on the counter and texting. Elle leaned back against the counter that held the espresso machine and folded her arms across her chest. They stood in silence for a moment, then Elle said, "Your shift's up."

"Yeah, I know," Mallory said, not taking her eyes from her phone.

Elle waited for another long pause, then said, "So?"

"So what?"

"So, are you just going to hang out here all day?"

"What's it to you?"

"Rawr," Imogen muttered, sitting up straighter.

Mallory kept texting while Elle's jaw got tighter. Finally, Mallory pushed back from the counter and said, "Okay, then. All yours." She looked at Elle like she was trying to decide something, then marched to the cash register and opened it with a ping. She pulled a ten dollar bill out.

"Seriously?" Elle said. She launched upright from her slouch and stepped forward until she was just a little too close to for comfort. "Seriously, you're going to do this? Right now?"

Mallory slammed the door shut and spun around. "Dude," she said, like they'd had this conversation a thousand times. "Chill. Dad's cool with it. Look, I'll write him a note. Happy?"

"I'm not cool with it," Elle said. "You're screwing over his business and you don't even care." She threw up her hands and let her body fall back against the counter again. She scoffed. "But whatever. You know what? What-the-freak-ever. I'm done."

Mallory's eyebrows lifted in a way that didn't affect the rest of her face at all. Annoyance radiated off of her. It made me feel annoyed, even though I knew these weren't my own emotions. She opened her mouth, then seemed to decide it wasn't worth it. She rolled her eyes, pocketed the bill, and pulled her apron over her head and disappeared behind another burnt orange curtain that probably led to the kitchen.

The freckled boy had kept himself busy rearranging the straws in a canister. Now he rocked back on his heels and offered Elle an encouraging smile. "Lame, huh?" he said. I cringed, waiting for her to unleash on him, but she only half-smiled and said, "Yeah, Noah. Usually is."

The tension was gone. Mallory had taken it all with her.

The front door bell jangled as a large group of middle-aged women in business casual came in. A moment later, Elle and Noah were swamped, and I took a break to enjoy my just-okay coffee.

Imogen didn't like silences. "I'm pretty sure my sister is a Thumbelina," she said.

"Which one?" I said. I couldn't picture it. All Imogen's sisters were tall and willowy.

"Maia," she said. "Seriously, she was dating this wizard who specializes in amphibian magic. Like, turning people into toads and whatever." The disgusted look on her face told me exactly what she thought of this. "Then she was with this guy who was obsessed with the Beatles, her roommate seriously looks like a mouse and keeps trying to set her up with her brother, who's got these coke bottle glasses like you wouldn't believe, and and she's being pretty much stalked by this ornithologist."

"Which one's that again?" I said.

"Guy who studies birds," Imogen clarified. "The girl is a Thumbelina checklist. Literally the only thing missing is her faerie prince."

"Wow," I said.

"Right?" Imogen dumped half a packet of sugar into her coffee and stirred it around. "I'm kind of glad he hasn't showed up yet. Literally the last thing I need right now is another wedding."

Imogen was the youngest of seven sisters from one of Portland's oldest Glim families. Her family didn't actually rule anything, but they were technically a royal family in our world, which meant reputation, money, and magical gifts had been raining down on her since birth. Three of her sisters were already married, one was engaged to her longtime girlfriend and in the middle of planning a giant wedding in California, and now apparently Maia was ripe for her Story to start resolving itself. The only sister who seemed like a safe bet for a while was Nicole, who was too busy earning her master's degree to bother with dating. Every last one of Imogen's sisters was glamorous, intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished, and it drove her crazy.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and she'll totally screw up her Story and have to start over with another one," I said.

"If only we could all be that lucky," Imogen said. "No, I'm pretty sure her prince is going to show up and they're going to get married at, like, _the_ most inconvenient time possible. Probably the day I'm supposed to start at Institut Glanz."

"I'm pretty sure they'd let you start classes a day late," I said, though of course that wasn't the problem at all.

Imogen had her heart set on attending the world's best university for magical glamours and charms. Institute Glanz was nestled in a carefully hidden pocket of the Alps. Her college prospects reminded me too much of my own, though, and I made a face and sipped at my coffee. All the best magical universities were in Europe, and my dad had his heart set on both his kids attending his alma mater in Austria. I couldn't even begin to number the places I'd rather go after I got out of high school, but there was no getting that through his head.

The cluster of women around the counter drifted to one of the comfy brown couches. Elle and Noah worked in a seamless frenzy, whipping up cappuccinos and lattes and smoothies like they were born to do it. After the entire order had been carried over on a tray, Elle returned to the counter. She glanced at us on her way, but only for a second. We weren't interesting enough.

"So I'm thinking we should go to Gilt," Imogen said. "On Saturday night." She leaned forward in her seat, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

I couldn't bring myself to match her enthusiasm. Gilt, the supposedly spectacular club for the underaged, was hosting its first Glimmer-friendly night on Saturday. We were technically the right demographic, but we didn't belong there. "What are we going to do?" I said. "It's just a bunch of pretentious rich kids. I don't think we'd even be allowed in."

"Of course we would," Imogen said. "Think about it. I'm from the Dann Family. It's not like people don't know that name. And you're the daughter of a freaking Council member."

"It doesn't matter," I said. "It's going to be awkward. You know how cliquey royalty is. Just imagine us walking in and disrupting their… vaporizing gold coins or smashing ancient magical artifacts or whatever those people do for fun."

"You're a snob," Imogen said. She leaned back into her seat and pointed a long-nailed finger at me. "You're worse than a snob. You're snobby because you don't want to hang out with the other snobs. It's snobbery to the power of snob."

I rolled my eyes. Every few months, Imogen decided it was time to re-establish herself as one of the unbelievably rich and pretty royal kids that made up the clientele of places like Gilt, and every few months, I talked her back down to reality. I know what Imogen didn't, after attending all my dad's awkward balls and state dinners: The more elite a group, the less interesting they were going to be to hang out with.

"And you're better off without them," Elle said. I blinked and looked sharply up at her. She'd just completed my thought. But she wasn't looking at me. She was pointing a dishtowel at Noah. "Don't try to fit in with the popular guys, dude. You're so much better than that."

"Cynthia's nice," Noah said. "She doesn't fit the stereotype."

Elle scoffed, but followed it up with a quick smile, so he'd know she wasn't just being mean. "Yeah, she does," she said. "I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that, but she does. You just can't see it because she has really nice boobs."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Noah said.

"They're just a bunch of stuck-up kids with no actual interests or self-worth of their own, so they have to rely on their parents' money and totally entrenched political opinions to feel like they're important in this world," Elle said. If nothing else, this girl wasn't short on opinions. "And they're not. You're important. You're going to change the world someday, and Cynthia is just going to be another washed-up soccer mom on her fifth martini by lunch."

I gestured toward Elle. "I need say no more," I said.

Imogen sighed and pursed her mouth to one side. "I'm going to get you to Gilt eventually," she said. "If I don't give up and just go there by myself. The only reason I won't on Saturday is because I'm such an awesome best friend. You better appreciate me."

I couldn't help laughing.

"Side note," Imogen said. She was staring at Elle now with her head cocked to one side. "Pretty sure this chick is in World History with me."

At last, some good news. I held up a loose hand and she high-fived the tip of my pointer finger with the tip of hers. It was what we had always done when we were in class and trying to be quiet. She downed the last of her cappuccino. "Which means you're done here, which means—" She trailed off, looking at me expectantly.

I let out a giant sigh I didn't mean. "Which means we can go shopping now," I said.

She winked. "Nailed it."


	4. Chapter 4

The second I stepped in the door, it was clear a storm was brewing. Even someone of my undeveloped empathetic skills could tell when Reginald and Marigold Feye were about to get into a major argument. I got all of three steps in and shut the door behind me before I heard Dad's voice bellowing down the stairs.

"If you don't like it, why don't _you_ take it up with the Dwarf Coalition?" he shouted. "I'm sorry if my saving the goddamn magical world is inconvenient for your little get-togethers."

"It's not a party," Mom shrieked. "It's a meeting with your son's teacher, and I just can't _wait_ to explain to his Humdrum teacher that his father cares more about some stupid Dwarf Coalition than his own children. Or does it not matter to you that Daniel has been _skipping class?_ I have no idea where he's been going or what he's been doing."

"Then why don't you parent your son?" Dad snapped. There was silence, and then the slamming of a door, probably the one in their bathroom.

I closed my eyes and sighed, mentally picturing the words bouncing off me and falling into the ground. Even a faerie like me who wasn't talented at reading other people's emotion tended to pick up a lot of emotional crap from other people. We were like magnets, attracting everything around us, good and bad, and my parents' fights were bad all the way through. Most faeries had good marriages, because arguments took such a toll on us. But not Reginald and Marigold. Nope, they could scream and swear with the best of them. I rolled my eyes up at the now-silent ceiling. I couldn't be more proud to be their daughter.

I walking quietly into the adjoined living room and kitchen. Daniel was there, slouched on the leather sofa with his phone between his hands. He stared intently at it. He picked up stuff even more than I did, and it sounded like whatever was happening upstairs had been going on for a while.

"Hey," I said, quiet so I wouldn't startle him.

He glanced up. His face was pale and drawn, but he managed a half-smile. "Hey," he said. "Pizza's in the fridge. I don't think Mom's doing dinner tonight."

But Mom was doing dinner. A moment later, I heard her footsteps clomping down the stairs. She marched into the kitchen, barely glancing at us, and started slamming pots and pans around. Sparks shot from the end of her wand, which was tucked in her hair. It was clearly only a matter of time before her head caught fire.

Daniel mumbled something about homework and stood up. I followed him, not bothering to come up with an excuse for escaping the room.

"What's the deal this time?" I said on the stairs, careful to keep my voice down.

"Nothing new," Daniel said. He sounded way too cynical for a kid his age. Then again, I had been too. "The Faerie Queen still hasn't picked an heir. The Dwarf Coalition insists that the Oracle's fountains around the city are hosting some kind of parasite, which is of course yet another probably unfounded criticism so the Dwarf King can finally get a seat on the Council." He recited it all like he was some junior coffee-fetcher working for our dad, fully versed in the whole ordeal but bored out of his mind. I recognized the feeling. It had filled my days at Wishes Fulfilled before the Elle case had fallen in my lap and replaced boredom with panic. "The usual," he said.

We reached the top of the stairs and slipped silently past our parents' bedroom. When we were safely down the hall, I asked, not sure whether I should, "So what's the deal with you skipping school?"

"It's nothing," he said, in a long-suffering voice that said it was everything but not to pry. Half of me wanted to leave it alone and applaud him for making his own choices. The other half was his older sister.

"Skipping school isn't nothing," I said. "It's kind of a big deal. Where do you go?"

"Drop it," he said flatly. His face was still pale and tight from the argument before, so I did. I offered a smile and a fist bump. It wasn't much, but it was my way of saying I was at least a little in his corner. Someone had to be.

He disappeared into his room, and I disappeared into mine, shutting and locking the door behind me.

The air in the house stayed thick with anger and tension. I went to the window and pulled it open, lit some candles, and checked on the plants lining my window sills. They all seemed happy, enjoying the light of early summer with their leaves reaching hungrily toward the sun. I brought my laptop from my desk over to my bed. I might as well get some work done.

I hadn't been able to catch Elle at Pumpkin Spice, but this was the twenty-first century, and I knew where to find her.

Her Facebook page was mostly boarded up, everything visible only to her friends. Fortunately, I was a faerie godmother, and we had workarounds. I typed _wishesfulfilledgodmother_ into the username and _abracadabra13_ into the password field and hit enter. A moment later, her page popped up, as open to me as every other page on social media now was. I sent a silent mental high-give to whoever first discovered how nicely magical signals played with electronic ones.

Her profile photo was of her and a sandy-haired guy, both dressed in what looked like elaborate X-Men costumes. Elle was in a yellow and green uniform wearing a white-striped wig—Rogue, I thought, trying to remember the cartoons I'd watched as a kid—and the guy next to her was wearing a blue bodysuit with what looked like a bright yellow diaper and sunglasses with only one lens across both eyes. Cyclops, maybe?

I scrolled down. Her status updates were mostly reposted articles about women in geek culture, ComicCon 2014 updates, and human rights and fair trade petitions. She had 329 friends, was Interested In Men but didn't appear to be in a relationship, had been tagged in about a thousand photos of what looked like geek conventions, and liked pages for Marvel, D.C., Hayao Miyazaki, a bunch of animes I'd never heard of, fair trade coffee, women entrepreneurs, costuming, fanfiction, and a page called Keep Portland Weird. This last one made me smile.

"Keep Portland Weird" was the city's unofficial motto. It was based on Texas' "Keep Austin Weird," and it was no coincidence that both cities were major Glimmer hubs. Keeping a city "weird" meant no one really looked twice when you wore faerie wings out in public or went to Walmart in a pointed witch's hat, and it was one of our biggest tools in keeping our world out of sight of the Humdrums. Even my dad, who wasn't exactly the world's most unconventional guy, was a champion for Keep Portland Weird, because it meant it also Kept Portland Out of the Loop, which was one of his major goals as a member of the Council.

I liked Elle, from her page. She looked a little off-center, but she also looked like she knew what she liked and went for it, and I could respect that. What I didn't know was whether there was any way on the great green earth I'd be able to successfully hook her up for the kind of guy her dad apparently wanted her dating.

That in itself was a little weird, I thought, digging through Elle's folder. I'd long ago accepted that, while parents setting their teenage kids up was a little creepy, it was just part of the business of godmothering. But Elle didn't look like she was pining for a boyfriend, or needed some kind of social acceptance. On the contrary, she looked like she had a lot of friends, most of them nerdy as she appeared to be. And she didn't look like she was short on boyfriend prospects, either. More than a few of those convention pictures had showed her up next to guys in costumes, and, in defiance of all known stereotypes, some of them were pretty darn hot. Something felt off.

But it wasn't my job to decide whether things felt off, I reminded myself. That had been one of the first lessons of being an Assistant Junior Godmother at Wishes Fulfilled.

My first-ever case had been to get a princess from one of the royal families married off to an influential wizard. I didn't see why it was our business, and didn't think they'd be happy together, but Tabitha had reminded me that people had been entering into arranged marriages for thousands of years and that the mysterious Oracle herself had suggested the match. "It isn't up to us to judge," Tabitha had said. "It's up to us to do. We are the movers and shakers of this world," she had added, her face glowing with pride.

Tabitha liked her job a lot more than I ever would.

I brushed the memory aside as I found the name I was looking for. Figuring out who the most popular guy in school was had taken some research. My freshman year had been enough to convince me that high school was lame and real life wouldn't start till college, so I had no idea who was in that crowd. It seemed safe to assume Elle wasn't, either. Neither was Imogen. We knew the popular kids, all right, but only the Glimmering ones. Humdrum popularity was, in her eyes, just a lame consolation prize for not having powers.

I could see magic whenever I took my elf-made glasses off, but even Humdrum gifts—charisma, brains, good intuition, and all sorts of unexplainable talents—left their own kind of residue. I'd holed up in a bathroom stall at school, waved my wand around to sense any popularity signals floating around, and then gone into the halls with my glasses propped up on my head.

Being without my glasses made me dizzy. The Glim kids whirled with colors. Faeries were surrounded by shimmering metallic clouds, witches walked around with smoky familiars curled on their shoulders or around their arms, and wizards walked around with stars spinning in constellations around their heads. One girl had a galaxy forming near her right ear. There weren't many Glims here, but they stood out.

But they weren't what I was after. I felt a pull drawing me to the source of the gift I was looking for. Eventually, I turned a corner and found him.

A well-built guy with dark hair and a sports bag over his shoulder had been walking down the hall. A pretty blond girl followed alongside, carrying a pair of his shoes. The air around them glowed white with mist. I'd tapped the handle of my wand, which was up in my hair holding my bun together, and put my glasses back on.

Now, I found the name scribbled in the margins of Elle's work schedule: _Tyler Breckenridge._

His Facebook page looked like someone's application to a preppy frat. His profile picture was a faux-casual senior photo of him in a hoodie with some brand name splashed across the front, looking soulfully at the camera. I was pretty sure it was airbrushed. His status updates were almost entirely about how he felt after working out, his hopes for getting onto a college basketball team, motivational quotes, and selfies, most of them including various girls. He was from Utah but lived in Portland, and I could see absolutely nothing that might make him interesting to Elle, or Elle interesting to him. They were different species.

On the bright side, he did appear to be available. While the blond girl who'd been walking with him in the hallway did appear in a lot of his selfies, so did a lot of other girls, and he listed himself as "Single" on his profile.

I wished faerie godmothering was a little less rigid. We had rules we had to follow, and if the case file said "the most popular guy at school," that meant "_the_ most popular guy at school." I could think of four or five guys off the top of my head that Elle would probably get along with better, but that wasn't how it worked, and Tyler had been the one with the white cloud around his head. Sometimes faerie godmothering felt like trying too hard to shove puzzle pieces into the wrong slots. But the Oracle knew better than any of us what would make our world a better place, and the Oracle had said a long time ago that the job and noble calling of a faerie godmother was to make her clients' wishes come true.

Even if those clients clearly didn't know what was good for them, or their teenage daughters.

I sighed, feeling an increasingly familiar weight settle in my stomach. Two more years of this and I'd be free. Then I'd be eighteen and have saved up enough gold from my paychecks—and, if this case went well, from the Oracle's Fountain—to take the whole heap to the Magical-Mundane Currency Exchange and get enough dollar bills to pay for my first year of college. I could do anything to make that happen, even be a faerie godmother while Tabitha got better.

In the meantime, I'd have to look into getting special permission to use some kind of short-term love spell on these two. Love spells were usually tricky and highly regulated, but since the assignment really only stipulated the relationship last one night and give the girl a nice memory of prom, I hoped it wouldn't be too hard to push the paperwork through.

The sick feeling didn't go away. Even if it was only for just one night, was it really right to force the girl into a relationship that probably wouldn't make her happy, just so her dad could feel better about her not fitting in?

Perhaps the dad was the solution. Maybe I could go talk to him and get him to see reason. It couldn't hurt to actually go talk to my client, right?

There were too many things to worry and wonder about. I did what I always did when the stress of daily life started to get to be too much: I looked up Oregon State University's botany program and spent the next hour clicking through their website, letting myself daydream about leaving this all behind.


	5. Chapter 5

Elle's dad was an airhead.

I'd been sitting at Pumpkin Spice with him for the last half-hour, trying to explain why hooking Elle up with Tyler was a bad idea. He'd spent most of the time saying things like "every girl wants to feel like a beautiful princess on the night of her prom!" and "he seems like a nice boy—exactly the kind of kid who could help her fit in with her peers." He seemed completely oblivious to the idea that Elle might not _want_ to fit in—that she preferred to hang out with fellow geeks and spend her time on hobbies that were more interesting to her than going to high school football games or proms or whatever else her dad had picked up about adolescence from watching _Sixteen Candles._

Greg was a tall guy, balding up top, with thin wire glasses and a pleasant smile. He was a pleasant person all around, with a mild voice, friendly manners, and, apparently, a deep-seated desire for his daughter to be happy. He was just completely off about what would make that happen.

It wasn't just my own inferences from her Facebook page that led me to this conclusion. The real clincher had been when I'd walked in the door and seen her at the counter, quietly arguing with him.

"I don't _want_ to go to the movies with Sabrina," she'd hissed at him. "Sabrina and I are _not friends._ Just because Sabrina is Courtney's friend does not mean she is _my_ friend, and I can promise you we'd all rather I not be there."

"Come on, honey," he'd said. "It's the weekend. You've got to get out and live a little. Enjoy your youth while you still have it."

"I'll do that when Pumpkin Spice is in hands that aren't trying to drive it into the ground," she'd said. "You're more than welcome to help with that. Any day now." The sarcasm in her voice had been palpable, and I had a feeling the discussion would have escalated if I hadn't caught his eye and nodded just then. He'd given in, then, and she'd sighed loudly and disappeared into the back, leaving Noah to handle the slow straggle of customers.

Pretending I hadn't heard them fighting, but that didn't seem to be getting anywhere, so I waited for Greg to pause, then cut in with, "So what did Elle mean about someone driving Pumpkin Spice into the ground?"

My voice was a little too casual, and Greg's pleasant face drooped into a slight frown. "It's nothing to worry about," he said. "Elle doesn't agree with the way I run this place."

I leaned forward. This was a more interesting than listening to his ideas about teenage prom dreams. "What's the deal?" I asked.

I expected him to wiggle away from the question or try to brush it off, but he only shrugged. "She doesn't think I'm professional enough and she thinks I have bad ethics," he said. He didn't sound embarrassed or upset by this. If anything, he sounded tired. "She really wants to replace everything on the menu with organic fair trade coffee and we just can't make that happen right now."

"Why not?" I said. It seemed like everyone else in the entire city served nothing but organic fair trade coffee, if the signs in cafe windows were to be believed.

"It's expensive," he said. "I know—it makes me sound like a monster, right?"

I shrugged. I didn't know enough about coffee or running a cafe to have an opinion on the subject. I'd heard people's comments about it, of course, but I only drank coffee when I came to places like this with Imogen. But Greg didn't strike me as the monster type. A little clueless, maybe, but clueless wasn't a straight shot to evil.

"I don't know, honestly," I said. "What's wrong with the coffee you have now?"

"It's not fair trade enough," he said. He was slender enough that his sigh seemed to make his entire body cave in for a moment. "She was upset about it, and I thought she had a point about making sure the people who grow coffee aren't exploited, so I started buying coffee with 'fair trade' on the label. Deborah—my wife, you know—helped me find a good brand we could afford. But apparently that's not good enough. It has to be fair trade, organic, shade-grown, bird-friendly, carbon-neutral, Rainforest Alliance coffee from one of three specific startup companies whose coffee costs three times more than the brands we use now. And she's got all these requirements for the milk and soymilk and cocoa we use. And I'd be fine with that. It sounds like a great idea, really. But we can't afford it. We can't keep enough clientele as it is. This isn't a great location. I know it makes me a bad guy to put the evil dollar ahead of all that, but I've got to keep the doors open. This place feeds my family."

The dots weren't connecting in my head. "So why are you sending her to prom?" I said. "Sounds like she's more unhappy about that than a dance."

He leaned forward, face lighting up like he'd just had a good idea. "I think she's lonely," he said. "She doesn't hang out with friends like the other girls do. She just works and spends time with her best friend and doesn't try to get to know anyone else. And she spends an awful lot of time and energy telling the customers how bad our coffee is and making them feel guilty for ordering it," he added, giving the counter a sidelong glance. "It's not great for the business or the family. We're a blended family, you know, and she's always struggled with getting along with her stepsisters. I think maybe if she got caught up in some other drama, some _good_ drama, she'd realize there's more to life than yelling at anyone who thinks the coffee here is okay."

He said "drama" like old people always tried to say things like "took a selfie" and "went viral," like he was hyper-conscious of trying to be hip and with it. It was weirdly endearing.

"So you're trying to distract her by making her the star of some eighties teen movie?" I said.

He looked pleased, like I'd caught on at last. I forced my expression to stay still. "Exactly," he said. "Just distract her for a while. Give her a chance to see that there's more to the world than taking down the family business. She's a senior, so by the time prom is over she'll be heading off to college and she can start her own life."

"Instead of complicating yours."

He nodded. It was all making sense now. _Weird_ sense, but sense.

"Yeah," I said. "I don't think that's going to work."

"I think it will," he said. "And that's what you people do, right? Faerie godmothers? You make people fall in love."

That was a gross oversimplification, but I couldn't pretend it was the first time I'd heard it. Everyone associated us with romance and midnight balls, even Glimmers who knew better.

"The thing is," I said, "I don't think she wants a magical eighties teen movie prom night."

Greg laughed at this. His laugh was loud and likeable. Everything that came out of his mouth was driving me crazy, but I couldn't actually be upset with him. I wondered how Elle managed to be so angry. She'd seemed to have the hang of it when I'd walked in.

"She doesn't know what she wants," he said. The disrespect of the words made me cringe, but he seemed so well-meaning that I didn't think to react fast enough to stop what came next. He stood up. "I'm sure you'll do a great job," he said. "Your boss said it was your first case, but you seem like a real professional. I know you can do it." He smiled, like he was the inspiring coach in some sports movie who helped the main kid believe in himself—was this man's entire life lifted out of feel-good movies?—and, before I could get a word in, walked off.

I considered going after him, but I had a strong suspicion it wouldn't do any good. I'd been trying to talk reality into the man for the last forty-five minutes, and he didn't seem to have gotten a single thing out of the conversation. On the bright side, I'd gotten a few insights. Elle had hangups about ethical coffee. I didn't know how that would ever be relevant to anything, but hey—at least the girl was kinda cool.

I had three minutes to be in class before the bell rang, and I was spending it out in the hallway, trying to talk some sense into Daniel.

"Dad is going to kill you," I said.

"Dad won't give a crap," he said. "If he even notices." While this was unfortunately mostly true, it didn't do anything to calm the way my blood pounded in my temples.

"Daniel," I said, louder than I'd intended and with the edge of desperation in my voice that didn't sound good on anyone. "Seriously. What are you doing? You can't just ditch school in the middle of the day. It's not cool."

He threw up his hands. "Ask me if I care," he said.

This was my life, I realized. Trying to set up a geeky girl with the most incompatible guy on the planet and, in my oh-so-abundant spare time, trying to rescue my idiot freshman brother from turning into a juvenile delinquent. Fabulous.

"What's wrong with you?" I snapped. "Where the hell are you going?"

"None of your business."

"You have five seconds to tell me or I'm going straight to the principal's office," I said. Regret cringed its way through me less than a second later. I sounded just like our mother.

Daniel seemed to realize he had pushed me into the corner of self-loathing that always came with the realization that either of us was acting like our parents. That meant he had the upper hand, but the threa still hung in the air between us. I looked him in the eye and raised my eyebrows, promising us both that'd I'd follow through, no matter how much of a childish tattle-tale it made me. He sighed loudly, rolled his dark Feye eyes, and said, "Whatever. I'm going to my friend's to do this thing."

Immediately, my mind jumped to drugs, drug dealing, and prostitution. _That escalated fast,_ I thought, trying to rein my mind back into something approaching reality. "What thing?" I said.

"None of your business," he said.

"Principal's office," I said. "Not even kidding."

"Fine," he said. His face flushed and I felt a wave of hot embarrassment rolling off him. "It's this performance art thing. My friend Devyn is putting together a spoken word performance group and we're rehearsing today for a poetry slam on Saturday. Okay?"

I blinked at him, caught completely off guard. My brother was skipping school for a _poetry slam?_ Apparently I knew even less about him than I'd thought. "Weird homeschool girl Devyn?" I said.

"God," he said, like I was the most clueless and out-of-touch faerie being on the planet. "Yes. That a problem?"

"Okay," I said. I lifted my chin and peered down at him, waiting to see if he'd sprout antennae or do something else unexpected. When nothing happened, I sucked on the inside of my cheek and thought for a moment. He was looking at me with a defiant expression, but I could feel hope mixed in with the embarrassment.

On the one hand, he was about to risk his education, future freedom, and a nice big screaming match at the Feye house on the hope that he wouldn't get caught. On the other hand, I had exactly one minute to be in class and avoid a lecture from Ms. Henson.

"Fine," I said, like I was doing him a huge favor. "I won't tell. But it's not my fault if Mom grounds you until, like, the end of time."

"Duly noted," he said. He rolled his eyes again, like it was beginning to be a nervous tic, and took off down the hall, his walk a mixture of defiance and speed.

I growled, the quiet annoyance rupturing out of my throat before I spun on my heel and went into class. I spent the first half of the period having conversations in my head with Daniel as he saw the error of his ways and apologized for being such an inconsiderate brat, then spent the rest worrying about Elle and how the hell I was supposed to get her hooked up with someone like Tyler Breckenridge. Imogen passed me notes now and then, but they were mostly about a new witch guy she'd just met, which was no help at all.

Imogen had World History with Elle next. It looked like my only shot at introducing myself to the girl in a non-creepy, semi-plausible way, so I walked Imogen to class. It would have been so much easier if Elle had been just another Glim client—I could have showed up wearing formal wings, waved my wand around, and told her I was her godmother. We could have gotten the whole introduction thing wrapped up in five minutes. As it was, I had to act like a normal person.

I gritted my teeth, remembered how much gold this case would go toward paying for college, and offere a big forced smile as we "accidentally" almost ran into Elle at the door.

"Hey!" Imogen said brightly. She said she'd been making small talk with Elle during class to break the ice. My job sucked, but my best friend was the best. I reminded myself to tell her so later, then realized I didn't need to: She'd read my emotion already and beamed at me, her head cocked and an _Aww!_ expression on her face.

"Hey," Elle said. She seemed calmer than either of the times I'd seen her at Pumpkin Spice. Not being in the middle of a workplace you were determined to take down might have that kind of mellowing effect. "You get your essay done?"

"Ish," Imogen said, then shrugged and laughed. "I mean, seriously, how much can you say about the Salem witch hunts? Puritans were creepy, women are apparently dangerous… that's about it."

I held back a smirk. The Salem witch hunts were still kind of a big deal in the Glimmering world. Almost everyone I know either got choked up or started yelling about how Humdrums would never accept us whenever they were brought up. The whole issue was a sore point with a lot of people. "Right?" I said. "You can pretty much get that paper done in two sentences."

"I wrote the whole thing on powerful women being a disruption to the religious patriarchy," Elle said.

"Of course you did," I said, then, when she looked at me weird, hurriedly added, "Sorry. I'm Olivia. Hey, you work at that coffee place downtown, right?"

Elle's eyebrows quirked up in surprise, but she didn't seem upset to be recognized as working at what was apparently the evil establishment. Instead, she smiled and said, "Yeah. You come in there a lot?"

"Now and then," I said. "Just heard about it. Nice place."

"Yeah," Elle said. She raised and dropped her eyebrows quickly with her lips pursed. "We don't get a lot of customers." She clearly expected me to ask what was wrong with it. I didn't have the energy.

Their teacher looked pointedly over at us from inside the classroom. I nudged Imogen.

"Oops!" she said. "Gotta go."

"We should hang out," I said. The words tumbled out of my mouth, and I knew in a second that I'd just come across way too creepy. I mentally kicked myself and said to Elle, "It's always good to meet new people, right? So many people here are so wrapped up in their own little worlds. My New Year's resolution was to get off my phone and really be present with people more."

It was probably the stupidest thing I'd ever said. But Elle nodded.

"Yeah," she said, looking kind of surprised but not like she was quite ready to run in the opposite direction. "Good for you."

"We're going to a spoken word poetry thing this Saturday," I said, silently hoping Imogen didn't already have plans she hadn't told me about. "You should come."

Elle looked from me to Imogen, who smiled encouragingly, then back again. "Sure," she said, though I could feel a little reluctance clinging to her. "Why not? Sounds fun."

"Awesome!" I said, then, before my voice could make me sound too excited, said, "Great. See you then. You guys had better get in there."

They left me to my awkwardness. My heart pounded in my chest. There was no reason for it, I reminded myself. All I'd done was get in touch with my client. But it had gone okay. It hadn't been a disaster, and somehow or other, that freaked me out.

Saturday night was going to be uncomfortable. Daniel wasn't going to want me there, whatever "there" was, and I had a bad feeling Imogen, Elle, and I were going to get stuck in some corner booth while some artsy hipster shouted angry nonsense words into a microphone for three hours. But maybe if there were all enough of us, it would be okay, and it wouldn't be too weird. Parties always got better when I knew one or two people there; a poetry slam had to get better when I had at least a couple friends there. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled out my phone and texted Lucas.

_Olivia: Hey. :) Imogen and I are going to a poetry slam thing Sat night. You want to come with?_

I walked to my class with my hand wrapped tight around my phone. Right before I reached the door, it buzzed.

_Lucas: Can__'__t. I__'__m taking my gf to a concert for her bday. Sounds fun, though. Next time!_

Lucas had a girlfriend?

I had no reason to be upset by that. We were just friends. I'd been horrible at keeping in touch over the last few years and we'd only been back in touch for a week. I shouldn't be surprised that he had a girlfriend. He was nice, and cute. Of course he had a girlfriend.

I wondered how long they'd been dating. I wondered if I would have been able to snap him up in time if I'd asked him out last week at Pumpkin Spice when Imogen had told me to. I wondered way too many things.

_Ok, cool,_ I texted back. _Have fun._

I loved texting. No one could see my expression over a text, or tell whether I was sincere or not.

I shoved my phone into my pocket, wishing I could shove the irrational flush of embarrassment that had just rushed hot to my cheeks in with it.

His girlfriend wasn't my problem, I told myself. Elle was my problem. I was going to get to the bottom of her story on Saturday.


	6. Chapter 6

I was stupid for thinking this was a good idea.

I scanned the dark room, trying to find an empty table. Daniel's event, _Poems in the Key of F-This-Shit_, was being held in the banquet room of a grungy restaurant in downtown Portland. Tables and booths ringed the room in a vague half-circle around a cheap stage draped with black fabric.

There were more people here than I'd expected, and I made a beeline for the first empty booth I saw. I settled in, looking around at the youthful crowd, and then did another scan for magic. There wasn't much. Daniel was avoiding me from a far corner. He'd only told me where the event was when I'd threatened to tell Mom where he was going, like a jerk. A couple other faeries in their twenties sat at a table near the front of the stage, bright blue drinks in their hands. Everyone ignored me, except for a dark-skinned woman in the corner who stared vacantly in my direction without seeing me, but she wasn't Glimmering, and neither was the rest of the room.

At least I didn't have to worry about this group revealing the Glimmering world to Elle tonight. It wasn't much, as relieving things went, but I was willing to take what I could get.

Imogen floated across the room while the band started setting up on the stage. She'd given Elle a to manage tonight _and_ a long car ride was more than I could have handled, but Imogen was a master at small talk and didn't mind being in small enclosed spaces with strangers. I didn't understand her, but I couldn't help being thrilled by our differences on nights like tonight.

"Interesting place," Elle said, sliding into the booth beside Imogen. Her hair was in a loose braid over her shoulder. "Cool decor in the restaurant out front. The grunge thing is old enough to be kind of cool again. I wish I'd thought of it."

"You want to open a restaurant?" Imogen asked, and I cut my eyes at her. _Too much, too soon,_ I thought, and she rolled her eyes. _Stop being so paranoid,_ she seemed to be thinking.

Elle missed our silent conversation and said, "Sure, someday. It'd be brilliant." She dug in her purse for a minute while I tried to convey back to Imogen that I wasn't being paranoid, I was being sensible. She thought the two were the same thing when it came to me. Elle's hand emerged from her purse with a tube of lip balm. She slicked it over her lips and said, "I mean, I basically already run my dad's place."

"No kidding?" I said. I couldn't disguise my interest; fortunately, that just make me look sincere instead of like the creepy stalker of a faerie godmother I was.

"I'd run it a little more but he's really trying to push me out," she said. I held my breath. Was it really this easy? "He's going to have to deal with me, though. I'm not giving up."

"That sounds dumb," I said. "Why would he push you out?"

"Yeah, hello," Imogen said in a sing-song voice. "Free labor?"

Elle rolled her eyes. "He's afraid of change," she said. "I'm trying to bring us into the twenty-first century, where we care about things like coffee plantation workers' rights, but apparently that's too new-fangled for Mr. Conservative."

"I hate that," Imogen said, and leaned her chin on her hand. If I didn't know better, I'd think Imogen was exactly in the same boat as Elle. I glanced over the top of my glasses and saw a faint rosy shimmer around Imogen. She was glamouring my client to make her feel safe. I squeezed her hand to say _thank you_ under the table.

"Right?" Elle said. "It's ridiculous."

"So what's the story?" I said, also leaning forward on my elbows and putting my chin in my hands. "It sounds like there's a story."

And that was all Elle needed. She was off, talking like she hadn't had anyone really listen to her in years. "The thing is, Pumpkin Spice was my mom's place," she said. "She was a total hippie and she wanted to make it into this awesome cafe where everything was organic and ethically sourced and local musicians came to play and where the community could really get together and do good in the world. I remember the place when I was a kid and it was amazing. My mom did all these fundraisers and stuff. But then she died—you don't have to look sorry for me; I know it sucks being the girl with the dead mom but there's really nothing anyone can do about it—and my dad got remarried and everything went down the drain. My stepmom is this real wannabe businesswoman and she's always talking to my dad about 'sound fiscal choices' and 'maximizing profit' and whatever, and he apparently thinks her opinion is better than mine because we haven't served coffee that wasn't commercialized crap for like three years."

"That sucks," I said, though she didn't need the encouragement.

"I know," she said, throwing one of her hands up in frustration. She grabbed hold of her braid and absently gestured as she spoke, making the gold-tipped tail of her hair point this way and that in every direction. "I love Pumpkin Spice. Love it. And I really want to buy it from my dad as soon as I turn eighteen. I seriously almost have the money for it and I've got the numbers worked out so I can grow the business _and_ not be a total commercial sellout. That's my place, and right now it's just full of my stupid stepsisters and crappy coffee and it _kills_ me, you know? It's like, it could be _so great,_ and instead it's just another crappy place for another crappy cup of coffee. I've started like three petitions and even got people to come picket once to pressure him into doing the right thing and actually supporting the workers and ecosystems that feed our caffeine habit. And you know what that got me? A bunch of long lectures and my dad breathing down my neck trying to make me best girlfriends with my idiot stepsister's sycophants."

"That sounds rough," Imogen said.

I couldn't believe how easy this was. Maybe I was in the right field after all. If godmothering was always like this, I'd be ready and saved up for college before the summer was even over.

"You have no idea," Elle said. "Oh, and just to make it better, my stepsisters? They work there too. And they're constantly stealing money out of the cash register, but Dad doesn't seem to think that's a problem. He calls it their 'allowance.'" She raised her fingers to make quote marks that bit into the air with all the warmth and affection of snake fangs. "And their mom's interest in 'maximizing profits' apparently doesn't stretch as far as making her idiot daughters stop taking twenties out of the company coffers. Is that the stupidest thing you've ever heard or what?"

"Yeah," Imogen and I both said. Imogen's faerie gift still twinkled rosy all around her. I wondered if maybe it was time to ease up a little, but turned back to Elle.

"Don't take this wrong," I said. "But why doesn't your dad just fire you?"

Elle laughed. If anything, she seemed a little flattered. "He doesn't dare," she said. "I think he knows that if he fires me I'm going to pull out all the stops, and no one wants to be there for that."

She was a little intense, but I admired that. I wished I cared that much about anything. I'd thought I was serious about the escaping-the-Glimmering-world-and-studying-ecology thing, but the crazy light in Elle's eyes made me look like a lamb.

"He probably should fire me," Elle said. "I'm a disaster. I ruin people's orders, I lecture our customers about fair trade coffee, I get them to sign petitions… I'm pretty much the worst employee on the planet. The idea is that someday he'll cave and sell me my mom's place and I'll put up an 'Under New Management' sign and whip it back into shape." She rubbed the spot between her eyes before looking sharply up at me. "It's all just daydreaming, though. I'm never going to stop being a pain in the ass, and apparently he's never going to sell me the business, either, so we're basically locked in this creepy pseudo-western standoff with tumbleweeds and crap rolling around in the background."

She threw herself back against the seat, looking so annoyed I almost wanted to give her some space. I hadn't seen one of Imogen's glamours in a while and forgot what a freeing effect they had on people. Her trust glamours were more powerful than getting people drunk was, and getting people drunk, according to Tabitha, was one of the secrets to doing our business well.

I met Imogen's eyes and nodded slightly. She pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows toward Elle, who was fuming out across the room, and nodded back at me. Slowly, the rosy cloud around her faded, and only her natural gold shimmer was left. I raised my hand and waved over a waiter, who was wearing enormous baggy jeans and a black t-shirt. "Could we get some sodas?" I said.

"Sure you don't want Tang or something?" he said. "We got all your nineties favorites."

I grinned, and Imogen laughed out loud. "Oh my God," she said. "Tang. My dad was obsessed with that stuff when I was, like, three. Bring me some of that."

"Just a Pepsi for me," I said.

"Good choice," Elle said. "Did you know they were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute for, like, eight years in a row?"

"I did not," I said, and apparently the waiter didn't either. He had one eyebrow raised at her like she was some exotic species of lizard.

"Pepsi for me," she said, returning his expression with a warm smile.

"Weird," Imogen said in an undertone and with a matching warm smile. I thought she was talking about the baggy-pantsed waiter until she nudged me. "Hey, Liv? Why's the lady in the corner staring at you like you're an alien?"

I glanced over. The same woman who'd been staring at me before was still staring, and now I wasn't quite so sure her expression was vacant. Her gaze were aimed right at me, and when she caught me looking, she held her stare, then smiled and slowly looked back to the stage.

"That's not creepy at all," Elle said, eyebrows raised.

"Who's that drunk this early?" Imogen said. "Seriously. Not healthy."

The band onstage was finally done setting up. I'd been keeping Daniel in the corner of my eye, but he hadn't been doing anything interesting, just walking around and helping some teenage guy set up three microphones on stands across the front of the stage. Now, as the waiter picked his way back across the room with our drinks in hand, most of the lights in the room clicked off. Only a faint glow from the dusky windows filtered in.

A bright spotlight flashed onto the center of the stage, then cut off again. A bright greenish spot flooded my vision where the light had been, and my eyes adjusted in time to see three black-clothed figures shuffle onto the stage. Daniel was to one side; I could tell because of the faint emerald shimmer that floated off him above the line where my glasses cut off.

The next twenty minutes were decidedly weird. Daniel and the other three performers—one girl and one guy up front with him, and a girl in the back playing drums and shaking tambourines—spent the first few minutes jerking their arms around like robots. Then the girl in the middle, Devyn, who I recognized because of the bright turquoise streaks in her hair, stepped up to the microphone and shouted "Automatons of the world, unite!"

The drums crashed behind her, then went into a drumroll as their movements became jerkier and sharper. Suddenly, everything stopped with loud cymbal crash.

"I hear you," Daniel said, looking out into the crowd with his head tilted down just enough to make his dark eyes look actually creepy. "We're the same, you and me."

"Steel, copper, gold, titanium, our movements all the same and forged out of lifeblood torn from sacred lands!" the other kid across from him shouted.

"I am forged from the heart of the earth," Devyn cried. "My skin is heart. My pulse is the pulse of the land. Automatons, unite!"

"We are all the same," Daniel said. "Our pure life force is welded to the tracks society has made."

"Metal was never meant to be a cage!" Devyn said.

"We are all the same," Daniel said, his voice falling into a chant. "One step forward, one step back, our lives a never-ending machinated repetition of the same expectations."

"Expectations grown rusty in the wind," the other guy intoned.

The drummer started banging everything in sight with her drumsticks. The lights flashed on and off and the three figures in front jerked wildly around, their movements still stiff and precise. Imogen looked over at me with her eyes wide in an expression toeing the line between amused and alarmed. I knew exactly what she was feeling, even without the pulse of repressed laughing emotion she sent in my direction.

I looked over at Elle, certain she'd think I was a lunatic who'd dragged her off to Crazyville. But she was watching the stage intently, her head tilted and her eyes glued to Devyn, who was now lying on the ground, impersonating what I thought was supposed to be a broken robot as it slowly decayed and returned to the earth.

Twenty minutes later, after the robot had fully become one with the soil—to the sound of Daniel, the other guy, and the drummer softly chanting "We are all the same, we are all the same"—someone switched the lights on. "Intermission!" Daniel announced, dropping into a low bow. Clapping filled the room, some people sounding enthusiastic, others uncertain.

Elle whipped her head around to look at me. "Which one's your brother?" she asked.

"The little skinny one," I said. "With the dark eyes."

"Nice," she said. "He's not a bad performer. Maybe if I ever get Pumpkin Spice running the way it should these guys can come do their thing."

"Sure," I said. Whatever had just happened had been weirder than I'd expect for a coffee shop. But then, it was my little brother doing it, and my little brother had never exactly seemed like the artsy chanting type.

I tried to remember what type Daniel _did_ seem like. But I didn't know. I still associated him in my mind with GameBoys and the weird dinosaur obsession he'd had when he was five and insisted on only speaking in growling "dinosaur language." The kid now draping giant pieces of green fabric across the stage was someone else, and I couldn't quite get a handle on him.

Imogen, as usual, was doing that thing where she was actually reading my emotions but seemed to be reading my mind. "Didn't know Daniel was into this kind of stuff," she said.

"Me neither," I said. I sipped my soda. The ice had melted and it tasted watery and thin. "Life is full of surprises."

An awkward silence seemed about to descend, but Imogen cut it off almost immediately. "Speaking of surprises," she said, turning to Elle. "You should tell us more about yourself. You seem cool but I don't really know you that well."

I had no idea what I would do without her here.

Elle smiled a little and shrugged. She finally seemed relaxed, like her guard was down and not just because she was having strong emotions about her dad's cafe. Her confession session seemed to have broken down some barriers between us. "What do you want to know? I mostly just avoid my psycho stepmom."

"Cheers," I said, raising my glass to her. "To dysfunctional parents. I have a couple myself."

She smirked. "Glad to meet another member of the club."

"But I'm curious, too," I said. "What do you like to do in your spare time? You kind of seem like the kind of person who'd get super really into stuff."

Elle's smile widened, and she laughed a little. "I guess you could say that," she said. "I'm actually kind of a nerd. I really like costuming."

"You sew?" Imogen said, like this was the most interesting thing anyone had ever done.

"Yeah," Elle said. "But mostly just my own stuff. Like, I make my own patterns." She pulled out her phone. "You want to see some of my stuff?" she asked. It was the most shy I'd seen her yet.

"Yeah!" I said, and Imogen leaned forward. Elle held her phone out and we put our heads together as we scrolled through the photos. There were some of the ones I'd seen on Facebook, as well as a gorgeous blue ball gown that Elle said was supposed to look like the TARDIS from _Dr. Who_, a sexy leather corseted steampunk outfit, and a Sailor Moon getup that made me suddenly nostalgic for my childhood.

"These are amazing," I said.

Elle bit her lip to try to force back her grin. "Thanks," she said. She took the phone back. "I guess it's kind of weird."

"No, it's not," I said. "You're really good. Seriously."

"Thanks," she said again.

"What are you working on next?" Imogen said.

"Have you ever heard of _Starship Mine?_" she said. We shook our heads, and she shrugged like she should have known. "It's an anime. Kind of sci-fi-romance-adventure. My best friend Kyle and I are going to a sci-fi convention in May. We're going as Astra and Starlark. They're our favorite characters. Kyle says I look kinda like Astra. Which is nice of him, because I totally don't—she's a princess from the planet Fornax and she's super beautiful because her race is descended from the gods of beauty that ruled that quadrant of the galaxy—" She cut off, noticing our confused expressions. She jumped back to something we could understand. "The costumes are kind of ambitious, but I figure you may as well go big or go home."

"I'll bet you're going to look spectacular," Imogen said.

It seemed like no matter what Elle did, from trying to take down her dad's cafe to creating stunning costumes, she did with a lot of enthusiasm and skill. I couldn't decide if I liked or envied that combination more.

The lights flicked of and then on again a few times, and we turned back to the stage as the performers shuffled back, this time with bright green scarves wrapped over their black clothes—one scarf around an arm here, another hanging loose from someone's knee there. Daniel had two green scarves tied around his wrists, making his hands look long and floppy.

They took their places on the stage in crouched positions, and then the spotlights went up and they were performing again, this time as new seedlings born from the remains of the automatons. Devyn recited a long rhythmic poem about nature that didn't make a lot of sense, and the other three danced in circular motions around her. It was weird, but Elle was right: Daniel wasn't a bad performer. He delivered his lines with confidence and he wasn't too embarrassed to be caught leaping around on a stage chanting "Chlorophyll! Chlorophyll! Guide me to the light!", which was more than I could say for myself.

He made a point of avoiding me after the show, sending me strong _go away_ emotions in short bursts. A few other people had crowded around him to talk about the performance, so I settled for catching his eye and nodding my approval. He didn't exactly smile, but the _go away_ message faded for just a few seconds. It wasn't exactly a heartfelt embrace, but it was something, and more than I'd expected for crashing his party.


	7. Chapter 7

The Pepsi had hit my system way too quickly. "I'm going to use the bathroom before we go," I said. Imogen nodded, which I took to mean she'd keep Elle entertained when I was gone, so I slid out of the booth and ducked my way through the small crowd against the stream of traffic.

The bathroom was a small three-stall room off a back hallway. I stopped at the mirror for a second on the way out to try to fix my hair, which had looked fine earlier in the evening but had returned to its normal state of frizz while the performance had been going on. I combed through it with my fingers and only glanced up when a toiled flushed and another woman appeared in the mirror beside me. Then I did a double-take, because her dark green eyes were staring at me in a way that was going to become familiar any second now.

"Hi," I said, trying to be assertive but not rude. She kept staring. Her skin was the soft warm brown of a pecan and her hair curled in tight ringlets around her face. Most of it was dark, but here and there a curling thread of gold spiraled its way through her hair. Her eyes were a rich green that didn't look quite natural with her skin tone. She would have been ridiculously pretty, except for the way she was staring at my reflection like she was deranged.

I tried to feel the emotions around the woman, but I got literally nothing. I glanced over my glasses and saw nothing around her, either. Sometimes when people were being socially awkward it was just because they had something magical going on. This woman didn't seem to have any such excuse.

She kept staring at me like I was a puzzle piece she was trying to figure out, and she wasn't about to stop just because I was starting to feel like a bug under a microscope. "Can I help you?" I said, annoyance creeping into my voice. The woman smiled, and her expression softened.

"Very possibly!" she said. I'd expected a brash voice that matched her fondness for staring contests, but the words out of her mouth were gentle. "I'm so sorry for staring, honey. I've just been looking for someone like you for an _awfully_ long time and I've really got to be sure of what I'm seeing." She pursed her lips and drew her eyebrows together and commenced trying to fry me with her laser beam gaze.

I was in a bathroom with a crazy woman.

I offered her a thin-lipped smile and decided my hair could stay frizzy if it meant getting out of here. I turned for the door.

"Wait!" the woman called. I spun around on my heel, trying to not give into the irritation creeping up on me. She was probably experiencing some mental health issues or had problems reading social cues. I shouldn't get mad at her for not knowing better, I lectured myself in a mental voice that sounded way too much like my mom's.

"I've got to get back to my friends," I said, pointing toward the door.

"They'll be fine," she said, sounding absolutely confident. Her forehead smoothed and she clicked her tongue and pointed at me. "You, my dear, are in for one wild ride."

"Aren't we all," I said, and turned again for the door.

The woman laughed, her eyebrows shooting up in surprised delight. "I like you," she said. "Oh, that's good. I'm glad. Listen, I know you have to get back to your friends, but could you maybe meet me later?"

Something felt off. It took me a moment to realize what it was, and then I pulled my glasses down my nose to look over them. This woman, who had been totally devoid of any magical energy, was now standing in the swirling middle of a vortex of white shimmers and gold sparkles and green tendrils made of light. I took a step back, my heart pounding.

She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I had it pulled back in the room out there. I knew there were some Glimmer kids and I didn't want to alarm them. I just have way too much energy sometimes."

"No kidding," I said. I kept my glasses down. It was my turn to stare. She didn't seem to mind.

"Your brother did really good out there," she said. "Daniel is your brother, right? You're Olivia Feye. Reginald Feye's daughter."

I should have known. She was some ultra-powerful Glimmering bigwig and in her mind, I was already cast for the role of Teenage Representative of the Magical World. "Yup," I said. "That's me."

"How nice to meet you," she said. She held out a hand. Not entirely sure I wanted to, I took it. Her skin was warm and seemed to throb like it was loaded with a heartbeat. "I'm Amani Zarina."

It took a full three seconds for the name to register in my head. When it did, my eyes shot open and my spine grew stiff.

"Oh," I said.

Amani Zarina.

The Faerie Queen.

She put a hand on the back of her neck, seeming almost embarrassed. "Yeah," she said. "I try to keep it on the down-low when I'm in public. But I like coming to events like this and I thought… well, I just _knew_ I'd meet you here tonight."

Why I would be relevant to her was beyond me. But it wasn't my place to question the Faerie Queen. It was no one's place to question the Faerie Queen. I ran my tongue along my teeth, suddenly noticing how dry my mouth had become.

I was supposed to say something. I was supposed to curtsy and say something and send her a ball of white light to show my respect for her role in our world. All I could manage was a fumbling, "Um, nice to meet you. Ma'am." Too late, I dipped a short curtsy that mostly made me look like I'd just stepped on a sprained ankle.

The Faerie Queen was gracious enough not to notice.

"I'm so happy to meet you," she said. "_So_ happy. Literally can't even tell you."

I should have responded with something like "The honor is all mine," or "You're too kind, My Lady." Instead, I blurted out, "Why?"

She blew a puff of air out of her mouth, her green eyes getting wide and catching the dim lights above the bathroom mirror. "I can't even begin to explain," she said. "Anyway. Ignore me." She held her hands up and waved them like she was trying to get me to stop, although I had a feeling she'd meant the message to be directed at herself. "You'd better get back to your friends. I'm so sorry for keeping you."

This time, I managed a curtsy and a civilized reply. "Not a problem, My Lady," I said. I paused, wondering if I should wait for a formal dismissal, before backing slowly out of the room. Once on the other side of the door, I let myself freeze in the hallway for a second.

_Did that really just happen?_ I asked myself, my voice silent but my head reverberating with the question.

I thought over the last few minutes, tracing back tiny details like the way her curly hair had been reflected in the faucet and the way the room had smelled faintly like citrus cleanser.

_Yes,_ I thought, _Yes, it did._

There was really nothing to say to that. I closed my eyes tight, shook my head, and then headed back into what had suddenly become the weirdest restaurant on earth.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Thanks for all the lovely reviews, wonderful people! You make me happy. :)

If meeting the Faerie Queen in a restaurant bathroom had been surreal, a few hours of godmothering was enough to bring me back to reality fast.

Following Tyler Breckenridge around with an invisibility glamour wrapped around myself convinced me he was the last guy in the world Elle would be interested in going to prom with. He'd spent all of lunch period chatting up his blond not-quite-a-girlfriend, spending the first half telling her about the details of his amazing athleticism at the last basketball game, and the second half hour elaborating on some talk show host's hostile stance on global warming. I had a hard time conjuring up the idea of anyone who would be more likely to annoy Elle Ashland. It was a match made anywhere but heaven.

Elle's dad hadn't seemed too convinced by my arguments when we'd talked before, but I'd done my research this time. Surely he'd see sense and at least bring the terms of the case down to something a little more reasonable. "A moderately likeable individual," say, instead of "the most popular boy at her high school." Turning down the notch from "the romance of a great teen movie" to "the satisfaction of a pretty okay evening" wouldn't hurt either, but I wasn't going to get crazy.

I pulled my wand from my hair where it was disguised as a hair stick and tapped it on my phone. The screen lit up and sparkled as I ran a quick tracking spell using a GPS app. A bright purple push pin dropped down onto the map, landing right on Pumpkin Spice. I caught a bus, my heart pounding harder than it should.

He was there, standing behind the counter and talking to his oldest stepdaughter, Mallory. They seemed to be having a pleasant enough conversation, but Elle, working the counter beside them, didn't seem interested in joining. She took orders and threw them together without giving her relatives a glance.

I tapped the handle of my wand, which was now back in my hair, and sent a zing of attention toward Greg. He flinched, then stood up and looked around as if confused by what had hit him. After a moment, he saw me standing near the doorway. I gestured for him to come over, then sat at one of the window tables and turned my back out toward the road. Elle couldn't see me talking to her dad, and I was no Imogen—I couldn't use one of my mediocre glamours or I'd risk confusing him even as I hid from her. He slid into the seat opposite me, a disposable coffee cup in his hand. I glanced at him, then angled back to look out the window.

"Is everything okay?" he said.

"She can't see us together so I'm going to keep this quick," I said. "And no, not okay. I need you to revise your wish. I found the most popular guy at Elle's school. He plays something three different sports and has twenty different girls all trying to be his girlfriend, and Elle is going to hate him."

"Why?" Greg said. It was like he hadn't even been listening to me last time. Or maybe like he'd never listened to Elle in his life.

"Unless I read her completely wrong, Elle's going to be more into a poet-musician-environmentalist-artist kind of guy," I said. "And I don't read people wrong. Ever, really. It's part of being a faerie godmother—I get people right the first time. She's going to hate him."

He shook his head, smiling at me like I was a puppy that just didn't know what it wanted. "He sounds like a nice kid," he said. "He must have something going for him if twenty girls all want to be with him, right?"

"I'm sure he does," I said. "But Elle—"

"She'll like him," Greg said. "All you have to do is let them give each other a chance. That's what I want from her: To know what it's like to be the envy of all the other girls in the school and to feel like a princess on her special night. This guy sounds like exactly what I hoped he'd be."

Because all girls wanted out of life was to be princesses. I dug my fingernails into my leg to keep the irritation off my face.

"Greg," I said, keeping my voice quiet but firm. "They're never going to hit it off. Ever."

He leaned forward. "That's why I hired you," he said. "So you can use your you-know-what."

Ignoring the innuendo, which was just dying for a _That__'__s what she said,_ I turned slightly to look at him. "Even with magic, it's not going to last. Love spells are short-term only."

"That's all she needs," he said. "Just something to distract her and make her feel special for a while. Then they'll both go off to college and can have a nice amicable breakup. All they really need is a nice summer fling. Something to keep her mind off things." He gestured aimlessly in the general direction of Pumpkin Spice.

"It's not a good idea," I said. Were "amicable breakups" even a thing? "In my professional opinion, it's _not_ a good idea."

"It is a good idea," he said. "I know you want to do a good job, but I also know this is your first case. I'm her father. You're just going to have to trust me." He put the coffee on the table and pushed it toward me like a peace offering. "This is for you," he said. "Hazelnut latte. I hope you like hazelnut." He stood up, then leaned over with his hands on the table. "You're doing a great job," he assured me. "Just stick to the wish and everything will be great."

He offered me an encouraging—and condescending—smile and walked back across the room, his walk relaxed. I felt out into the air to see what I could read off him. He felt content, even pleased with himself. He thought he'd given me a real learning moment. I fought back the surge of annoyance that rose up in my chest.

No wonder Tabitha and the others were always whining about clients not knowing what they wanted. I'd thought they all just wanted something to gripe about. Turned out it was a lot more than that.

I propped my elbow on the table, then let my forehead fall into it. I rolled my head to look out the window. A couple walked by, hand-in-hand, the girl gesticulating wildly in a yellow sundress and the guy looking at her while she talked like she was the most magical thing he'd ever seen.

That was never going to be Elle and Tyler. There weren't enough love spells in the world.

I sighed and sat up, then jumped. The seat that had been empty seconds before had been filled by a sandy-haired guy about my age who seemed to be made entirely out of elbows and ears.

"Hey," he said. He offered a cheerful smile that put me immediately in mind of some happy freckled kid from fifties sitcoms, the kind of all-American boy who said things like, "Golly, pop!" and "Gee, that's swell!" He leaned forward, putting both his elbows on the table like he was worried he wouldn't get close enough if he just settled for leaning. "You look _miserable._" He drew out the word, seeming to relish just how horrible it was.

"Thanks for noticing," I said. I raised an eyebrow at him and held it there, waiting for him to get the message to beat it.

He, of course, did not get the message. "It's not a bad thing," he said. "Not like you look bad, I mean. You're kinda pretty. Don't take that weird. I'm not hitting on you."

Unlike with most guys who tried to pull that phrase off, I got the feeling he meant it. I tried to intuit his emotions. They were coming in loud and clear, and after a second, I leaned back. I'd been right the first time with the "gee, swell" bit.

"I feel miserable," I said. He shrugged, like _I told you so._ I picked up my coffee and held it up like I was making the world's crappiest toast. "Miserable," I said, for emphasis. "Have you ever actually beat your head against a brick wall?"

"Nope," he said. "Cliche."

"That's what I thought. But I'm about to go to the brick building next door to try it, just to make sure that is actually what I'm feeling right now."

"Aw, come on," he said. "It can't be that bad. Tell me all about it."

"I don't even know you," I said.

"Doesn't stop most people," he said, his perpetual smile quirked up into an actual grin on only one side. "But you're not most people. You're one of us."

I tilted my head to look over my glasses. The kid glowed gold like he was standing outside during the sunset. In an instant, his weird mannerisms made a little more sense. We Glims could be a little forward with each other. There were so few of us that running into another one in a cafe could be enough to make you friends.

"Yeah, I am," I said. "Faerie. And a godmother, which is worse. What are you?"

"I'm a Magician," he said. "And a Hero."

"That's a little pretentious," I said, sipping my coffee. It still wasn't amazing, but still wasn't crap.

The kid grinned all the way. "Right?" he exclaimed. "Totally douchey. I was born into one of those royal families that hasn't seen the inside of a palace in more than a few generations, if you know what I mean."

"You and everyone else and his dog," I said. Not-so-elite royalty made up a significant chunk of our world. Once upon a time, there had only been a few magical royal families running the world and living out all the Stories. But they'd had grandkids and their grandkids had had grandkids, and now the Glimmering world was suffering from a serious overpopulation of twentieth-generation princes in the suburbs.

"But then a witch got mad at me for feeding her dog chocolate and I spent all of middle school as a toad," he said. This was moderately more interesting. "And then I went on a Quest and lived out a Story and now I'm a Hero. It's on my ID card." He held his palm out over the table, then flipped it rapidly over and up again. When his palm was up again, a silver card had materialized. There, next to his ID photo and right above his personal stats (_Magician, Prince (Ancient Persian Line), Underage)_, was blazed the title _HERO_ in big black letters. He flipped his hand over again and the card disappeared. "It also made me enormously socially awkward, if that's any consolation," he said. "I've decided to roll with it and pretend I'm just being ironic, but I actually am as socially inept as I seem."

"All right, big shot," I said, making a big deal out of rolling my eyes.

I couldn't help liking him. I wondered if that was one of his gifts. Lots of Magicians had charisma and it seemed like he'd gotten a double helping. He was socially awkward, but I couldn't imagine anyone actually seeing that as a problem past the first thirty seconds.

He held out a hand. "I'm Kyle."

I took it and immediately filled with a warm sense of trust and affection. I suddenly wanted to take Kyle home and feed him cupcakes. I pulled my hand sharply away.

"None of that," I said, though I knew he probably couldn't help it. "I'm Olivia."

"Olivia!" he said. "No way. You're Elle's friend."

I glanced toward the counter. Elle was there, talking to Mallory and not saying terribly nice things, judging from the way the older girl had her arms folded on her chest and seemed to be pulling away from the conversation. "Yeah," I said. "How do you know Elle?"

"How do I _not_ know Elle?" Kyle said. "I'm her best friend. We practically get pedicures together." Before I could even start trying to intuit him again, he added, "And no, I'm not gay, so you can stop with the faerie feely-sneaky thing." He swatted at the air in front of himself, like my gifts were a fly he could shoo away.

I realized I knew who he was. Elle had mentioned him last night: _My best friend Kyle and I are going to a sci-fi convention in May._ I narrowed my eyes and tried to picture him in a blue X-Men costume. He was definitely the kid from half her profile pictures. It was amazing how different he looked without green face paint or pointy latex elf ears.

"Does she know?" I said. That had the potential to be a game-changer. But he shook his head.

"Nope," he said. "She's a Humdrum and I'm not super in the mood for an inquisition from the Faerie Queen."

The Faerie Queen, who I'd met in a restaurant bathroom. The idea was still too weird to wrap my mind around. "What's Elle like?" I asked. Something about him made me not want to beat around the bush. I knew it was probably just his charisma getting the better of me, but I didn't have the energy to be anything other than direct.

He leaned back and steepled his fingers. Apparently this was a question requiring great deliberation and wisdom. I half-expected a snarky answer to come out of his mouth, but when he spoke, he was thoughtful. "She's tough," he said. "She's resourceful. She has a lot of baggage and could probably use some therapy, but she's not too likely to ever actually go to therapy, so we're all just going to have to live with her."

"What kind of baggage?" I said.

"Going for the big guns there, tiger," he said. "But okay. Her mom died when she was like twelve. It screwed her up, and her dad's not exactly the world's greatest listener."

"You're kidding," I said. I didn't even have the energy to put fake shock into my tone. The words came out flat and burnt out.

"And her stepmom, you'll want to know about that," he said. "She's not a bad person—don't tell Elle I said that—but she's the kind of woman who actually wants diamonds for her birthday, and Elle's the kind of person who likes to lecture people about the horrors of diamond mining. So you can see how they get along."

"What about the stepsisters?" I asked.

"What you see is what you get." He held out a hand toward the counter. "Older one's ready to get out of the house. Younger one's made out of bubblegum and lollipops."

"Friends?"

"Lots of casual ones, only a few close ones. That's why I'm excited to meet you. Elle said you were cool. She doesn't say that about a lot of people."

I was touched for a second, until he added, "Good thing you're her faerie godmother."

I held up a hand. "I did _not_ say I was _her_—"

"Save it," he said. "I might be dumb but I'm not that dumb. Girls like Elle don't just go make new friends. You went after her. And I'm cool with that. Every last one of that girl's wishes should come true."

He was almost too sweet, but I didn't want him to be anything different. Not wanting to miss this gold mine of information, I said, "What else? Who is she? What does she care about?"

"Saving the world," he said. "She goes to conventions dressed up as a superhero and then comes home and tries to be one, too. She's ridiculously creative. She's probably the most unique, interesting person I've ever met. And she's crazy about this place. She wants to buy it from her dad and I'm going to help her run it. She's going to do amazing things."

Strong vibes were coming off him. I stopped listening for a second to tune in. The air felt expansive and something smelled sweet and fresh over the warm earthy scent of the cafe, like flowers after a rainstorm.

_And you__'__re in love with her,_ I almost said, then stopped myself. I didn't want to know if he was. Making his wishes come true wasn't my job, even if he looked like he probably deserved a few.

My job was getting Elle and that idiot to prom.

Kyle shut his mouth and looked pointedly over toward the counter. Elle was walking toward us, a smile I hadn't expected on her face. She pulled her hair tie out and refastened her ponytail as she crossed the cafe to meet us. "Hi!" she said. She held out both hands, one toward each of us. "How do you two know each other?"

"We don't," I said. "He just sat down and decided we were going to be friends."

Her smile faded to a smirk that managed to crinkle the corners of her eyes. "Of course he did," she said. "I swear, Kyle, you would make friends with a fire hydrant if it happened to be the only thing sitting next to you."

"Fire hydrants are people too," he said.

Elle leaned against the edge of our table. "What are you up to?" she asked me. "I loved that article you posted on Facebook, by the way, about the conservation stuff in Africa. Seriously, when are people going to realize that the earth can heal itself if we just back off for a second?"

I didn't think I was supposed to like my clients this much, but I couldn't help a second of thinking she had the potential to be my new best friend if Imogen ever got tired of the job. Then I pulled myself back to reality. "There's an elephant preserve you should check out," I said. "I'll send you the link later. And I came to see if the coffee really is as lame as you made it out to be," I said. I held up my cup and tilted it back and forth. "It's not the worst."

"And yet so far from being the best," she said. Kyle pointed at her and gave me an expression that said, clearly, _See? What did I tell you?_

He was so crazy for her.

I was at work, I reminded myself. I wasn't here to start daydreaming about how to set Elle up with Kyle. I was supposed to set Elle up with Tyler. It was probably going to take years, so I'd better start now. "I'm surprised Tyler isn't here," I said. "He was totally checking you out today."

"Who's Tyler?" she said.

At least my instincts were good. I'd known she wouldn't know him from a lima bean.

"Tyler Breckenridge," I said. "Guy on the basketball team. He was staring at you outside of World History this morning."

She scoffed. "Tyler Breckenridge?" she said. She seemed to speak around the words, as though they tasted bad and she didn't actually want them in her mouth. "That guy is a douche."

I shrugged. "Apparently the douche wants to take you to prom," I said, then, quickly backtracking as I realized exactly how too-much-too-soon this comment was, added, "Or something like that, because he was definitely staring."

"Ew," she said, and didn't even seem to think the conversation was worth pursuing, let alone the guy. "Whatever. I'm not going to prom anyway."

Of course she wasn't.

"Why not?" I said. I hoped she'd take my panicked tone as shock that anyone could miss their prom.

She grinned and elbowed Kyle in the shoulder. "Because this dork and I are going to NebulaCon," she said. "Remember? I told you about it. The _Starship Mine_ costumes?"

"You did indeed!" I said, trying to cover up my rising dread with enthusiasm.

"Ah, NebulaCon," Kyle said. "Where weird people get to feel normal for a night."

"Living the dream," I said.

I suddenly felt somewhere between disillusioned and downright sick.

Who had I been kidding, thinking I was going to pull something like this off? Tyler Breckenridge alone would have been complicated enough. Convincing Elle to skip what was apparently the geek event of the season on top of that?

I looked between her smiling face and sparkling eyes and his expression of excitement. Giant waves of lovesickness kept rolling off him like puffy clouds coming in from the ocean, and, while I didn't think Elle was exactly puffy-clouding back, she definitely wasn't battening down the hatches, either.

I was screwed.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who let me know I'd uploaded the wrong chapter! Here's Chapter 9, for real. :)

Ten minutes after stepping into Lorinda's office, I stepped back out again with a signed slip of paper confirming her agreement: Getting Elle and Tyler together organically was going to be impossible, and I had official approval to use a short-term attraction spell on him. "Start there," Lorinda had said. "If she isn't won over when he starts standing under her window playing mediocre guitar, come back and we'll dope her up, too."

Godmothering was such an ethically sticky field. Elle would be horrified.

Fortunately for all of us, Elle would never know. I was almost glad she had no idea of her mom's Glimmering background, or her own probable abilities. At least this way she wouldn't be involved in what was looking to be a definite miscarriage of justice, and wouldn't be able to fight me about wrapping it up to its inevitable and ludicrous Greg-wished conclusion.

Someone should really put a ban on people making wishes for other people, I thought. Witches were great about that. Some would help people meddle with other people's lives, but most of them—and all the really good ones—were big into personal accountability and only screwing around with your side of the street. We could stand to take a lesson out of their spellbooks.

I slumped into my chair. I worked in a small cubicle opposite the large window overlooking the Oracle's Fountain. It wasn't the most glamorous space in the world, but it was relatively private, so I rested my head in my hands and looked down at the slip of paper adorned with Lorinda's heavy swooping signature. This was what my life had come to: Getting permission from people to mess with other people's lives, just so I could get a few pieces of gold from the Oracle and avoid my dad yelling at me for quitting the job he'd so generously arranged.

I wished I could be more like Elle. She didn't care what her dad thought, knew exactly what she wanted, and was moving full steam ahead and damn the consequences. I, on the other hand, hadn't gone hiking in weeks and had barely even paid attention this morning when I passed a downtown supermarket selling exotic flowers. That wasn't normal. I was turning into some depressing corporate drone. I blew out a long sigh and the slip of paper on my desk ruffled and flew a few inches up the desk.

A frazzled presence loomed in my cubicle doorway. I didn't have to turn to know that it was Imogen, and she was in high dudgeon.

"Maia is getting _married,_" she hissed, her voice pitched just so I could hear but no one else could. "Married. Who does that?"

I sat up straight and spun around to face her. The chair squeaked. "I thought she was being stalked by some bird watcher."

"Right?" Imogen said, her eyes wide and a few steps beyond irritated. She shoved my pen holder aside and sat on my desk so she could lean down and talk to me from way too close. "You would think. You would _think_ she wouldn't spend six months whining about this 'stalker' and acting like she's desperate to date other guys only to turn around and announce she's marrying him. You would _think_ that wouldn't be an option and that she was, you know, just slightly smarter than the average village idiot. But nope. My sister's marrying the ornithologist stalker, and _guess who gets to be a goddamned bridesmaid?_"

"And I'm going to guess the first two guesses don't count," I said.

"Hades damn it!" Imogen said. "I thought I had a while. I thought some mother-fracking faerie prince was going to show up. But nope. Guess which of Portland's most famous bird stalkers is _also_ a prince from an established Glimmer family? No," she said, leaning in even closer to me. "Just _guess._"

She was toeing the line between annoyed and actually hysterical. I put my hands on her shoulders. "Breathe," I ordered.

"Who can breathe at a time like this?" she said. "Who has time for breathing? Not me! Because I have to somehow manage to fit in wedding dress shopping and bridesmaid dress shopping and testing freaking cakes and doing whatever else I'm going to be dragged into on top of work and school and my own freaking _life._"

I'd sat through too many of these panic attacks to take them seriously. "Breathe," I ordered again.

She took a deep breath, then let it all out with a frustrated growl. "She wants her colors to be yellow and blue, because 'those are the colors of canaries and bluebirds! They're Andrew's _favorite_ birds, because they're symbols of _happiness!_'" Her voice went high-pitched and simpering. I knew for a fact Maia did not talk like a Disney princess on helium, but decided this was a good time to keep my mouth shut. "And guess which color she chose for the bridesmaids dresses?"

"I'm going to guess not blue," I said.

"Nope!" Imogen shouted, like I'd won the grand prize. "She chose yellow. Do you know what I look like in yellow?"

"A washed-out spaghetti noodle," I said. "I say this with love."

Imogen looked good in almost anything. Yellow was one of the few colors that escaped the "almost." It made her skin and normally radiant hair seem to turn the same sallow colorless shade of overcooked pasta.

"It's okay," I said, taking her hands. She seemed exactly two steps away from the edge of a nervous breakdown. "You just have to show up and let her see you in it, and then you can glamour the thing to look however you want."

"'No glamours!'" she said, back in the chirpy Maia voice. "Because 'no one's allowed to look prettier than the bride!' She literally said that."

"I am so sorry," I said.

It was Imogen's turn to grab my shoulders. She shook me gently. "Help me. Promise you'll come to this stupid wedding and keep me sane!"

"I've been to all your sisters' weddings," I said. "I'm not going to skip out on this one."

Finally, Imogen deflated. All the frustration and irritation and rage seemed to seep out of her, and she slouched down with her arms dangling between her knees. "Thanks," she mumbled.

I was sorry for her, even without the feelings of despair and annoyance that were rolling from her and crashing over me like waves. I offered what I hoped was an encouraging smile. "How about I take you out for dessert later and we can come up with coping strategies for the next few months?" I said.

She looked deflated and defeated. I knew chocolate and some scheming would perk her right back up, but right now, my feeble empathetic gifts were on such high alert that it was almost painful to look at her. But my suggestion seemed to perk her up a little. "Okay," she said. "God, you have no idea how good it feels have _someone_ in my corner."

"I do know, actually," I said. She glanced up just long enough to sneak a smile up at me.

When my dad signed me up for faerie therapy to try to overcome my apparently "deviant" interest in attending a Humdrum university, Imogen had come with me to every useless appointment and spent the whole time in the waiting room, magicking discreet messages onto the pad of paper the therapist insisted I hold in case any insights "confirming the nobility of my magical heritage" came to me. It was stuff like _You got through that stupid __"__Menstruation and Me__" __class when we were 12. You can get through this_ and _Take the first letter of every sentence she says and try to come up with a plant name for it._ She'd also tagged along to more uptight government functions than I could count, actually gotten me out of the house and to more awkward parties than I knew existed, and introduced me to my favorite herb stall at the Portland Saturday Market.

A soft noise rustled the air above our heads. I looked up and saw a small white paper airplane, flapping its wings and clumsily trying to stay in place in midair. My name was written on the underside of a wing in fluid silver letters. I reached a hand up and plucked it from the air.

"Probably a memo from Lorinda," I said. "I got permission to use a heavy-duty attraction spell on Elle's guy. It's never going to happen otherwise."

Imogen pressed her lips together and nodded, like I'd just made the understatement of the year. I unfolded the envelope. It wasn't a typed memo from Lorinda, or anything else from inside the office. Instead, it was a short handwritten note:

_Olivia,_

_It was fantastic to meet you the other day. Could you come to the Waterfall Palace for supper next Monday at 6 p.m.? Just scribble a line here and send her back._

_Thanks!_

_-Amani_

The stationary felt soft and feather-light, with a pretty gold signature up top saying _Amani Zarina_ and, underneath that, in official-looking silver block letters, _FAERIE QUEEN, GUARDIAN OF THE FORESTS, MISTRESS OF THE GREATER PACIFIC NORTHWEST MAGICAL ALLIANCE._ I rolled my lips together, sighed, blinked at the page a few times, and finally looked up at Imogen, who was staring at me.

"What?" she said. "What is that? You feel weird."

Silently, I handed the paper to her. She read it in a flat two seconds, then looked up. If she'd been staring before, it was nothing to the look on her face now. "What?" she said. "_What?_"

Quickly and apologetically, I explained how I'd met her in the bathroom the other night. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier!" I said, trying to soothe her inevitable offense before it had a chance to develop. "I kept thinking I'd dreamed it or made it up or something. It was so weird."

"Always tell me things like that," she said, emphasizing every word. She looked back down at the paper, read it again, and said, "What does she want to talk to you about? No offense or anything, but what does the Faerie Queen want from you? You don't even _like_ being a Glim."

"That's not true!" I said reflexively. She raised an eyebrow, and I paused to consider. I did like being a Glimmer, I decided. I just wished I could do it quietly, away from the tedious functions and photo ops and assumptions that I would do great things for the magical world whether I liked it or not.

Imogen handed the paper back, her hands lingering on it like she was reluctant to go. "So write her back," she said.

I didn't know if I wanted to. The thought of actually going to the Waterfall Palace and trying to keep my composure through a whole evening with her was enough to make my knees knock together and my stomach fall through my body to the floor.

Could I just refuse an invitation from the Faerie Queen?

Lorinda poked her head into the cubicle door. She raised an eyebrow and looked down her nose at us. "And are you ladies working?" she asked, like we obviously couldn't be because we were just idiot teenagers. I took a deep breath to distract myself from the sudden and overwhelming urge to roll my eyes. Imogen didn't share my self-control.

"Sorry," she said. "We got a little distracted looking at the note Olivia just got from the Faerie Queen."

She got the whole sentence out before she noticed my wide eyes and the _no, no, no_ emotion I was sending her. She bit her lip and shrugged one shoulder. _Sorry,_ she mouthed. I rubbed my forehead as Lorinda swooped in and grabbed the paper from me without asking. She read it through quickly, her pale blue eyes ticking rapidly back and forth across the page like paper in her antique enchanted typewriter. She looked up at me, eyes alight.

"This is magnificent!" she said.

I could think of so many words besides "magnificent." But she wasn't interested in my opinion. She was already talking again. "Wow, Olivia. This is spectacular. She must have heard about you being our youngest godmother to single-handedly manage a case and wants to meet you. You know, I've been keeping my mouth shut about it. I know you'll do your best and I expect nothing less, but I think you'll agree that it's better to wait for success before turning the city's eyes on us. But of course Her Ladyship knows everything, and must see that you are destined for success! Well, what are you waiting for? Write her back and tell her at once that of course you'll come."

She held the paper out at me. Their expectant eyes rested on me and my stomach churned. I hoped both of them were too excited about the letter to be able to feel my dread. Slowly, I took the paper from her, then set it on the desk before I could change my mind. My stomach flipped over as I wrote. I wasn't sure whether to be excited or flattered or just sick. I folded the paper back into an airplane before Lorinda or Imogen could see what I had written and launched it into the air.

It soared up and over the cubicle wall. Lorinda watched it go from the doorway, and, when it must have disappeared out the corner window we kept propped open for messages like this, turned back to me and rubbed her hands together. "This is splendid, Olivia, just fantastic!" And she bustled back to her own office, too wrapped up in her own satisfaction to notice my nausea.


	10. Chapter 10

My to-do list for the day was the stupidest thing I'd read in a while.

_Finish English lit essay._

_Math pgs. 192-198._

_Return mushrooms book to library._

_Figure out what the $#&amp;! I__'__m supposed to wear to Waterfall Palace._

_Seduce Tyler enough to get him to Pumpkin Spice. Do not lose all self-respect in the process._

_Congratulate self on thinking that last thing is an option._

The Oracle couldn't pay me enough for this.

I couldn't count the number of times in the last day and a half I'd considered just walking out. I had elaborate visions of packing up my measly belongings, telling Lorinda I was done with the whole creepy industry, and then somehow avoiding telling my parents what I'd done, exactly like I'd avoided telling them about my Monday evening appointment at the Palace.

But even if the Oracle couldn't pay me enough, I would be paid something, and I needed every last gold coin to get me into college. My dad's manufactured Humdrum records showed he made way too much for me to expect any kind of financial aid. I had to hold onto every gold piece I could and hope that in the end it would be enough. I was already sacrificing by attending an Oregon school where I could get in-state tuition. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if I couldn't even afford that. Goodbye, self-respect, freedom, self-discovery, escape, and—above all—control over my own life.

With that in mind, I gritted my teeth, pulled my wand out of my hair, and steeled myself to become drop-dead gorgeous.

You wouldn't think it would take a whole lot of preparation. But it was a head trip. If I glamoured myself to appear fat in someone's eyes, they treated me differently, even if I forgot about the glamour and behaved exactly the same as I always did. They treated me differently if I looked Asian, or gay, or nerdy, or male, or exceptionally beautiful. Anything could be a target for weird behavior—coldness, or a sudden willingness to agree with everything I said, or derision; I could never tell what.

Imogen loved this about glamours. She had a grasp on the psychology of the whole thing and claimed she could get anything she wanted from anyone just by subtly shifting her appearance. I had never grasped this particular skill, and didn't really want to.

I examined my wand for a moment, making sure it was ready to work. My wand, like a loyal pet, was usually willing to go on an adventure, but sometimes needed a second to wake up. The handle was carved with gently curving olive branches, adorned with a minuscule spray of stars near the tip.

I waved it around my head three times, then tapped the top of my head.

Tiny stars rained down in the air around my like slowly drifting snowflakes. The magic took hold. I felt it descend like a mask around my face—not uncomfortable, exactly, but not me.

The bathroom mirror showed a face that was mine, but wasn't. It was hard to tell what was different. Slight irregularities in my face had smoothed themselves out. My one eye that was almost imperceptibly higher than the other had shifted down so that my eyes were perfect mirror images. They were bigger than usual, too, and their dark hazel had clarified to a sparkling, mysterious green. My nose was smaller, mouth fuller, skin clearer. My normally frizzy hair curled in attractive spirals around my face.

In short, I looked like me after I'd let someone else do my makeup and run me through Photoshop a couple times. It was more unnerving than attractive.

But Tyler seemed like the kind of guy who'd think otherwise. I came up on him as he was shoving books into his locker.

I leaned up against the locker and said, "Hey." With a different face, I wasn't myself. I was someone else—someone who wasn't weirded out by talking to attractive guys. Though, to be fair, It was easier to fall into that illusion when I had literally no interest in what that guy thought about the me under the mask. I pretended I was Imogen and offered him a radiant smile.

He'd glanced up when I first spoke, looking almost bored. Girls probably came up and tried to get his attention all the time. But then he did a double take. His eyes jumped down to my boobs and quickly back up to my face.

"You're Tyler, right?" I said. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my chest. People passed by us in the halls. A couple of them glanced at me as they passed, then let their eyes linger.

"Yeah, I am," he said. He shook his head so that his own dark hair flew out of his blue eyes. He looked like an Abercrombie model. "Have we met?"

"Come on," I said. "Don't you think you'd remember me if we had?" This was another tip from Imogen: Be way, way, way overconfident. "Guys eat that stuff up," she'd said, when I'd told her my plan and she'd coached me on it. "They pretty much believe you're exactly as hot you think you are."

Tyler shoved the last book up into his locker and slammed it shut. He leaned against it, looking and feeling like I was a nice surprise on what had promised to be a boring day. "What's your name?" he said.

"Olivia," I said. "I think we had homeroom together last year."

"I seriously doubt that," he said, leaning forward. "You're right—I'd remember you."

I narrowly avoided cringing.

"I saw your last game," I said, hoping he wasn't going to ask for particulars. "You're pretty good."

"I try," he said. His voice was casual but he stood up straighter, sticking his chest out a little. I had to admit, he had a nice chest. He smiled down at me. "You like basketball?"

"Confession," I said. "I'm not that into it. But you made it interesting."

I wanted to gag on the words, but the emotions floating around his body were pleased. He felt proud of himself, and, I realized with some irrational surprise, interested in me.

I leaned in more toward him until I was definitely violating his personal bubble. "What are you doing after last period?" I said. "You want to go grab a coffee?"

His emotions shifted to being even more interested. I got the impression girls asked things like this a lot, and this was the first time in a while it hadn't just been an annoyance. Oh, I thought, to be in Tyler Breckenridge's shoes. "I've got some time," he said, looking down at me with a smile clearly meant to charm me.

"I've got just the place," I said. "Shortbread cappuccino's to die for and they're pretty close. Have you been to Pumpkin Spice?" He shook his head, and shook my head like I was horrified. "Map it. It's the cafe, not the home decor store. I trust you're smart enough to tell the difference."

"I think I can figure it out," he said. He leaned in toward me, just a little too close. I backed away. "I'll see you at four," I said. "Don't be late."

I walked away down the hall, aware of his eyes on me. I forced myself to walk slowly and give him something worth looking at, like Imogen did. It felt creepy. I turned the corner and ran smack-dab into something solid.

"Sorry!" I exclaimed. I hoped Tyler hadn't seen. It wouldn't exactly improve my first impression. I stepped back and looked up at whoever I'd run into, then felt the blood rush to my face.

Lucas was staring at me with his mouth slightly open. "Hi, Olivia," he said, although hesitantly, as though uncertain it was me.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. It looked like shiny curls but felt the same as ever to me, and I almost got my finger caught between two curls. "Hi," I said. My face was a million degrees. Why had I had to run into him, of all people?

I couldn't focus on anything except my glamoured face. Doubly so when he said, still uncertain, "You look… nice."

"Lots of makeup," I said. "Doing a photoshoot. Art project."

I wasn't in art. I hoped he didn't know that.

"Cool," he said, but he couldn't seem to stop staring. I could feel myself getting hotter and redder. I tried to keep it from showing through the glamour, but I was no Imogen. There was no telling what I looked like. "I've gotta go," I said. "I'm going to be late. For the photoshoot. You know."

"Right," he said, too quickly. He was a little pink too, come to think of it. "Right, cool. Better get going. See you later."

I ducked past him and down the hall, and didn't even wait until I was all the way through the ladies' room door to tap my wand and brush the uncomfortable magic off.

I sat on one of the couches with my muscles poised to spring. I felt like a cat. An antsy, paranoid, ready-to-snap-at-any-second cat.

Rain sprinkled down onto the glass, tiny drops that were barely more than heavy mist outside. They sprinkled the backward Pumpkin Spice logo on the window. I flinched as a dark-haired guy walked past, but it wasn't Tyler.

My phone buzzed on the table. I looked down.

_Lucas: Good news!_ _I talked my way into US History. You__'__re in that one, right?_

It was a sign of my nerves that I wasn't excited about the text. I picked up the phone, then set it back down.

"Here you go," Elle said, making me jump. She handed me a coffee and a small muffin wrapped in a crinkled paper cup. "You okay?"

"I'm good," I said, too quickly. "Sorry. Was just thinking."

"About anything interesting?"

"No," I said. "Definitely not."

Elle didn't believe me but smiled. "Is Imogen with you? Sorry I can't make the movie tonight. I promised Kyle I'd go to his grandma's birthday party."

I remembered, just in time, that Imogen had said she'd try to get Elle to a movie with us that evening. "The more bonding the better!" Imogen had said, though I knew part of it was just her excitement at being part of an actual professional godmothering case. Imogen could get jealous sometimes, but she'd turned her envy into motivation to help instead of motivation to sulk around and complain, which just went to show that we were growing up.

Or maybe she was growing up. I seemed to be spending a lot of time sulking and complaining at having the case at all.

"That's okay," I said. "Grandmas are a big deal."

"Especially Kyle's," she said. "She thinks she's a psychic. Purple scarves and tarot cards and everything. She keeps telling me I can make business here better by 'charming the coffee' like my 'mother used to do.'" She rolled her eyes. I forced a laugh. "At least she remembers what we were like before," she said. "Anyway, I'll catch you later, okay?"

"Sure thing," I said. "Hey, I'm meeting a friend here in a few minutes. Would you bring a shortbread cappuccino over when he gets here?"

"You got it," she said. She walked back to the counter, and I went back to watching the windows.

After what felt like an hour, his figure appeared through the streaked glass. I recognized his profile from under his dark blue hoodie. I tapped my wand's handle, activating the glamour I'd set up earlier. It settled around my face. It would wear off as soon as I threw the love spell on him and another glamour on Elle—I wasn't about to try to keep all three spells going at once. It was a lot of magic in a short amount of time and I had to time it just right.

The bell on the door jangled, its bright sound cutting a sharp line between the gray day outside and the warm brown nest of Pumpkin Spice. Tyler stepped in, pulled his hood down, and looked around for me. I could see him taking in the room. He saw me and sauntered across the room to my brown couch.

He sat down on the brown sofa next to me, not too close but close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. "Am I late?" he said.

"Nope," I said, though it felt like it. "Right on time. I ordered for you. I hope you don't mind." I batted my lashes at him. It was a corny move, but it always worked for Imogen, and he didn't seem put off by it.

"Not at all," he said. "You seem like you'd have pretty good taste."

I smiled at him, then realized we had literally nothing else to talk about. Small talk wasn't my thing. It was just one more important godmothering skill the faeries had forgotten to give out at my christening. I sipped on my coffee, trying to buy time, and said, "So. Basketball. How long have you been playing?"

It really was as easy as asking a question. He was off, explaining how he'd been playing since he was three, had met some famous basketball player and gotten a signed ball from him when he was eight, and had spent the last few years training hard so he could play in college. "It's pretty much my life," he said. "I probably won't get to play professionally—I mean, who does?—but I still love it. It's fun, and I figure if it'll get me through four years of college, I did good."

"What do you want to do in college?" I said. "You must have a major in mind if you don't want to play ball forever."

"Business," he said. "Maybe go into politics someday. I want to make the world better, you know?"

Maybe he and Elle did have something in common, after all. I leaned in. "How?" I said.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Crack down on illegal immigration or something."

I didn't know a whole lot about Humdrum politics—the Glimmering world gave me more than enough to keep track of on any given day—but I had a feeling Elle wouldn't be behind this goal. I glanced over. She was busy behind the counter while Courtney cheerfully but slowly took the orders of the cluster of people waiting their turn.

"What about immigration?" I said. I needed to keep him talking. He obliged, launching into a diatribe about how immigrants were just here to steal jobs and leech off the welfare system and try to turn America's national language into Spanish. I pressed my lips shut to avoid telling him that actually, the USA didn't _have_ an official language. Even without knowing too much about the issue, I couldn't help cringing. He sounded like a spoiled rich kid whining because someone had forgotten to put his toothpaste on the brush for him.

Was I really setting this guy up with Elle? I couldn't think of anyone I knew who was likely to want him less.

But it wasn't my job to judge, I remembered. It was my job to do.

Elle was coming out from behind the counter, a mug in her hand. She caught my eye and smiled. _He__'__s cute,_ she mouthed.

I relaxed, but not too much. She leaned in and handed him the mug, and as she did, I tapped the back of my wand and sent a jolt of magic in both their directions. I gave her my glamour, and I drenched him in the love spell I'd put together yesterday at work and been carrying around in my wand ever since. The air between them crackled, and they both froze for a moment, staring at one another. Then the world resumed its normal course and she leaned back. "Careful," she said softly. "It's hot."

He set the mug down on the table and, still staring at her, said "I'll be careful." He spoke like it was a secret promise.

She looked radiant. Her blond hair was suddenly suffused with gold and sunbeams, and her eyes were the glimmering brown of driftwood under a running stream.

I reached my thoughts out to him, trying to sense if the spell had taken hold. It was immediately apparent that it had gone exactly according to plan. His entire energy had been consumed by the one thought that he loved everything about her.

So far, so good.

"Let me know if I can do anything else for you," Elle said, tilting her head at him. He kept gaping at her, and she looked over at me and slightly quirked an eyebrow. I shrugged, like I had no idea what was going on.

She walked away again, glancing back over her shoulder to find him still gaping.

I elbowed him. "Quit staring. You're freaking her out."

Startled, he turned to look at me. His face registered surprise, then confusion. He couldn't figure out why I suddenly wasn't pretty. I hoped he'd simply put it down to the power of comparing anyone else to the true object of his affections; otherwise, I was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

But Humdrums never realized something supernatural was going on. They always blamed themselves, even when that was literally the last rational course of action.

"Who was that?" he asked. His voices was as hushed as if we were in a church. I wondered if maybe I'd mixed the spell too strong, then decided it needed to be crazy strong to get past Elle. Judging by the way she kept glancing over at him with her eyebrow quirked and lips pursed, she was more confused by impressed by his quick jump from apathy to passion.

I tried to act casual. "What?" I said. "Oh. That's just my friend Elle. She practically runs this place."

"She's—" He cut off abruptly and looked at me, probably realizing it was rude to admire one girl when out with another.

I smiled. "She's gorgeous," I said. "I know. I could introduce you, if you want. Except maybe tomorrow. Looks like she's a little busy today."

He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He still ended up looking like a model out of a J.C. Penney catalog. "Tomorrow," he repeated. "Tomorrow would be good."

As if he were sleepwalking, he stood up, his coffee untouched. "I'd better go get ready," he told me seriously. When I nodded, he walked out. The bell on the door clanged brightly behind him.

I sipped my coffee. The calm relief flowing through me wasn't what success felt like, but maybe it was the appetizer. My arms felt heavy. The magic had worn me out.

Before I finished my mug, just as the caffeine began perking me up again, Elle showed up at my side. She crossed her arms and looked down at me. "What was that about?" she asked.

"That was Tyler Breckenridge," I said.

"I _know_ who that was," she said. "He made quite a point of telling the entire world I was a lesbian during health class last year. We go back a ways. What the hell was wrong with him?"

"You're a lesbian?" I said, then immediately wished I hadn't. I couldn't have jammed my foot down my throat any more obviously.

"No," Elle said. "But that's no one's business, and anyway, I don't care if people think I am. But that douche seems to think being called 'gay' is an insult, which makes him an ignorant asshole. Why was he being weird?"

"The douche is in love with you," I said. I wasn't sure whether this would soften her or make her hit me. From the way her jaw was twitching, it could go either way.

"Dear Lord, let's pretend you didn't say that," she said.

I shrugged, trying to look apologetic but not halfway as apologetic as I actually felt. _My job wasn__'__t to judge; my job was to do. _I chanted it as a mantra in my head.

Elle sighed, the air bursting out of her in disgust.

"That's ridiculous," she said. "How do you know?"

"Trust me, I know when a guy is in love," I said. "I've seen it before."

"Are you kidding me?" she said. Her arms tightened against her chest, making her apron go taut against her shirt. "That's really not funny."

"I'm really not joking," I said. "Why would that be funny?"

"You think a guy like Tyler is going to be interested in a girl like me?" she said. "Anyway," she added, shaking her head. "I wouldn't give him the time of the day if he was."

I scooted forward to the edge of the seat, looking up at her and trying to send softening waves of emotion toward her. I wished I had time to put together a spell, but my magical energy was shot. "Maybe you just need to give him a chance," I said. "He seems like a really nice guy."

"He's _not_ a nice guy," she said.

"You don't even know that," I said. I couldn't believe I was arguing for him. "People change."

"Yeah, they do," she said. "And he hasn't. And I think whether or not to 'give him a chance' is _my_ business."

"Come on, Elle—"

"I was going to ask Kyle if maybe I could sneak out early to meet up with you guys," she said. "But you know what? Never mind."

She spun around and took a few steps away, then turned around. "I really thought I'd give you a chance," she said. "You seemed cool. But you're just like everyone else. So you get to learn, just like everyone else, that I make my own decisions, and I'm not interested in hanging out with anyone who doesn't respect that. I'm sorry I thought you were different."

She marched away, back to the counter, and refused to look at me again.


	11. Chapter 11

I had never been so nervous in my life. It was Monday. I was having dinner with the Faerie Queen tonight. Between now and then, I also had to get Elle to talk to me.

I'd sent her texts, which she'd ignored. I'd sent her a Facebook message, which she hadn't read. I'd waited outside one of her classes this morning, but she'd managed to slip past without making eye contact, and now, I stood poised outside the door of World History.

It wasn't just the job thing, though that was motivating enough. But Elle was mad at me. And, much as I knew I wasn't supposed to get emotionally involved with clients, I hated her being mad at me.

Elle was interesting, and she was nice, and she geeked out over environmental conservation strategies as much as I did. I didn't have many friends outside of Imogen and Lucas, and she seemed like she might become one. Now, though, she wouldn't talk to me because she thought I was a nosy invasive jerk.

The worst part was, she was right. I'd realized this job was going to take a lot of my time and involve boring work. I didn't realize it would try to steal my soul.

I looked for Elle through the glass window in the classroom door. She wasn't visible from here, though I could make out a pink-nailed hand I was pretty sure was Imogen's near the middle of the third row.

"You okay?" a voice said. I looked up. Lucas was looking down at me with a concerned smile on his face. I flushed, remembering the last time I'd seen him. _Don__'__t be weird,_ I ordered myself, and offered a smile back.

"I'm fine," I said. "Just got a lot on my mind. You know. Nothing new."

"Tell me about it," he said. "Pre-calc is trying to eat my brain." He leaned up against the wall opposite me and tilted his head. "What are you worried about?"

"Work," I said. It was a vague answer, but an honest one. "I'm just not sure I've got the right job."

"What do you do?" he asked.

"I work at a life coaching agency downtown," I said. That was my stock answer. It was the closest thing to what we actually did, and most people were so skeptical of the idea of life coaching that they didn't ask too many questions after that. "I don't think it's really my thing."

"That's surprising," he said. "You seem like you'd be good at it."

"Yeah?" I said. "Why?" I'd never heard anything like that before. I wished I could tell him the whole story. He seemed like the kind of person who'd know how to listen.

"You just seem like a good person to take problems to," he said. "Like you'd help people figure out their own solutions instead of force-feeding them. You know what I mean? I hear that's a good thing in a life coach."

I felt almost sick at how exactly wrong he was. I'd been doing nothing but the opposite, force-feeding Elle against my better judgment. "How do you know so much about it?" I said, wanting to get the subject off me. It felt like a limelight, hot and too bright.

Lucas laughed a little, the self-deprecating laugh of someone who'd told too much. "My mom's been through a few," he said.

I remembered his mom. She'd been a loud, opinionated person with lots of energy and motivation but also a tendency to crash and burn when she overexerted herself. I could see her going through all kinds of coaches and therapists. The image of her burning out one after another must have made me smile, because he said, "You can laugh. You didn't have to join in on the 'values clarification' and 'finding your inner self' exercises."

A giggle burbled up from my throat, and I realized I hadn't laughed in three days. It felt unbelievably nice.

He watched me with an eyebrow quirked, like he was trying not to be pleased with himself for making me laugh. "Sorry, I'm just picturing you chanting on a cushion," I said. He smirked, and I added, suddenly and irrationally terrified we'd run out of conversation, "So, what have you been up to lately?"

"Not a lot," he said. "Homework. Getting to know the city again."

"Is your girlfriend from here?" I asked. I wanted to shove my fist in my mouth to shut myself up. Why did I have to bring her up?

But he didn't seem to realize the question was awkward. "Yeah, she grew up in Beaverton and lives in the Eastmoreland neighborhood now."

In other words, she was rich. Probably beautiful too, I thought, because that would be just my luck. Then I reminded myself that I wasn't interested in Lucas and that we were just friends. Why did my brain immediately have to latch onto the idea of "boyfriend" every time I ran into him? It didn't do that for anyone else. I wished it had picked someone single to panic over.

"So are you—" I said, but was interrupted by the bell ringing. My attention snapped toward the door. "Sorry," I said quickly. "I'll talk to you later, okay? I've got to catch someone."

"Imogen, right?" he said. I wasn't surprised he'd remembered her name. He'd been good with names back when we were younger.

I nodded, not wanting to explain. I went back to staring through the door window. Students were standing, gathering their backpacks. Lucas shifted from one foot to the other. "Well," he said. "I'll see you around, then?"

"Definitely," I said, wishing I could have him stay and catch Elle at the same time. But I didn't want him to witness this. Elle wouldn't be happy to see me.

"Okay," he said. His voice was hesitant, like he wanted to keep talking. I wanted to keep talking, too, but I only had one shot to fix this before I met with Amani. I couldn't stomach the thought of feeling guilty over Elle _and_ trying to keep up a conversation with the Faerie Queen at the same time. Something had to resolve or I was going to melt into a pile of oversensitive faerie goo. My faerie blood was a pain in the butt. The magic was nice and everything, but some days, it was so not worth the emotional overload.

Lucas walked away. I glanced up to watch him go, half wanting to chase after him and forget about the whole Elle thing, when the classroom door slammed open and students poured out. I recognized her blond hair and grabbed her arm out of the crowd, like some predator plucking fish from a school. "I need to talk to you," I said, once I had her outside the stream of people.

She yanked her arm away. "I don't need to talk to you," she said. "What is your problem?"

I walked down the hallway with her, matching her quick steps. "I want to apologize," I said. "I just—I just want you to be happy, you know? Tyler likes you. I thought that would be a good thing."

"Why would that be a good thing?" she said.

I had to dig a second to come up with an honest answer. "Because it's nice to be liked," I said. "And because, honestly, he has a lot of influence around here. I figured you'd be okay with that. I mean, just imagine what that could do for Pumpkin Spice."

I hadn't thought of it until that moment, but it was true: Tyler could be the difference that made her vision for the cafe come true. If she could mobilize him and all the kids who followed his every move, she could get some momentum going.

It was probably a red flag for the relationship if Tyler's biggest attraction was purely mercenary, but then, we weren't shooting for a real happy-ever-after here.

"I'll manage it without a man's help, thank you," Elle said.

"Why?" I said. "You hate guys?"

She spun on me. "No," she said. "They just don't validate my existence. God, I thought you were more interesting than this."

I'd thought I was too. I switched tactics.

"I didn't realize it would upset you," I said. "I guess you like Kyle, huh?"

Wrong move. She stopped dead and whirled on me. "Why is that your business?" she demanded. "Who I like, who I'm interested in, is not your business. My life is no one's business but mine. Why is that so hard for people to understand? Do you like it when people are always asking you stupid questions and trying to tell you who you're supposed to be?" She actually seemed to be expecting and answer. She stared at me, eyes wide, waiting.

I hated people telling me who I was supposed to be. Other people making my choices for me was the only reason I was standing here talking to her. "No," I said. "I don't."

"Okay, then," she said. "Not that complicated."

"I just want to help you," I said.

Her voice rose to a shout. "Who said I needed help?" she said. I flinched, looking around and trying to figure out how to make her quiet down. I couldn't just reach for my wand. People were staring at us. "Leave me alone. Quit showing up at my work. You can find crappy Columbian slave labor coffee somewhere else. What is this about? Are you into me? Is that why you're so curious? Because I told you, I'm not gay."

"I'm not either," I said. "That's not what this is about."

"Then stop stalking me!"

That seemed dramatic. But it got results. Within seconds, a teacher from a classroom we'd passed was standing at our elbows. "Excuse me," she said, looking down at us with her eyes bouncing between us, taking us both in. "What was that?"

It was the worst word Elle could have used. There had been a giant fiasco last year when a girl had been stalked and assaulted at a nearby high school during a homecoming game, and the school had been plastered by anti-rape campaign posters and anonymous hotlines for months. Teachers took accusations of stalking and assault very seriously around here, and I couldn't think of anything to say in my defense.

The gross part of all this was that, job description and official client and faerie power notwithstanding, I kind of _was_.

I stepped back from Elle, my hands up and heart racing. I didn't need this kind of drama today any more than she did. I had more than enough in store for this evening. "This is nothing," I said. "Elle doesn't want to be friends. I get it."

"Do you really?" the teacher asked, looking down at me with overly serious eyes. She wrapped an arm around Elle's shoulders. I saw Elle stiffen, but she didn't say anything. "This girl is saying 'no.' You need to respect her choices and leave her alone unless you have her consent."

I restrained an eyeroll with force. "I do understand," I said. "Unfortunately, Elle does not understand that I'm trying to apologize to her." I stared at Elle, trying to convey through my eyes that she needed to get the teacher to back off so we could talk. Elle didn't get the message.

"Maybe she doesn't want to be apologized to," the teacher said. She had a voice like I was a kindergartner who needed to learn not to bite other kids.

"Man, thanks," I said, my voice edging the line between sincerity and sarcasm. "I hadn't realized that." I looked over at Elle. "We need to talk," I said. "Because you have got one hell of a wrong impression."

"I doubt that," Elle said. "All I know is that you won't leave me—"

"That's what having friends is like, Elle," I said. "Friends ask each other about guys. Friends try to actually talk about stuff like grownups when they're upset instead of having screaming matches in the hallway. I'm so sorry if normal human contact is such a messed-up idea to you."

An idea flashed in my mind, and before I'd thought it through, I added, _"__Friends_ who know things about each other's moms tell each other." I threw up my hands again. "But I guess we're not friends, so never mind. Forget I said anything. Sorry I 'stalked' you."

I turned and marched off, not stopping when the teacher said, "Now, I don't think that's—"

She was cut off by Elle. "Never mind," she said, her voice curt. "There's no problem here. Just a misunderstanding."

"Are you sure?" the teacher asked.

"Positive," Elle said. Her eyes narrowed, but I was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

I clutched the steering wheel with both hands. I'd pulled into the parking lot of Multnomah Falls five minutes ago, but I still couldn't convince myself to let go of the wheel and get out of the car. I hadn't told anyone where I was going, just that I was meeting someone for work. Dad had been so pleased I was taking my job seriously that he'd given me the keys, no questions asked. I wished he'd stopped me.

The sun hovered low in the sky. It was far enough into spring that sunset had started lingering into the evening. Now, it cast warm yellow light onto the trees at the top of the cliff face above me. Not much of it reached down here. Multnomah Falls was the tallest waterfall in the state of Oregon, and the cliff it fell from cast a dark, cold shadow over the parking lot. I blew a long puff of air out, wishing I could send all my tension with it, then threw open the car door.

The wind hit me immediately, a sharp cold breeze that snaked in from the highway and whipped its way down the back of my peacoat collar. The hem of my moss-green dress flew up around my knees. I pulled the coat more tightly around myself and slammed the car door before walking across the parking lot, under the railroad bridge, and up toward the falls.

The usual crowd of tourists was thin this time of year. March was too cold and rainy for anyone to want to stay too long. I walked up the long wide staircase that led to the first viewing platform, then looked up. White water dropped down hundreds of gallons at a time, cascading down to crash in the pool below. Mist drifted cold across my face.

The path up to the bridge zig-zagged up the side of the hill, overgrown by ferns and trees. The evening sunlight snuck between the trees up here, casting long golden stripes through the dark green. The dappled shadows contrasted against the light and made my eyes strain to see the path ahead of me.

My teeth began to chatter; it was impossible to tell whether it was from the cold or my nerves. I reached out to the trees around me for comfort.

Being surrounded by trees was one of the best things about living in Portland. As a faerie, the trees meant more to me than they did to other people. While the Humdrum couple passing me going the other direction might enjoy their shade or color or the way they swayed in the wind, I could feel them stretching above me into the sky and below me into the earth, and could almost make out their thoughts as they spoke to one another. Having them near reminded me that the world had been around for a long time and not much had really changed.

People had survived meetings with the Faerie Queen before. I would, too.

The path led to a sharp turn onto the old stone bridge. If I went left, I could cross it and continue the path up into the forest. If I went forward, I'd run into a guardrail; right was nothing but a damp rock cliff face covered in lichen and moss.

I turned to the dead end and pulled my wand out of my hair, which I'd managed to tame a bit by using copious amounts of argan oil, and glanced behind me. The path was abandoned. I traced my name with my wand tip against the rock face.

_Olivia Feye._

It seemed for a moment as though nothing had happened. Then, moss started growing along the lines I'd traced, creeping along like vines until my name appeared in soft green letters.

_Proceed,_ a soft voice inside my head said, and I put my hand flat against the rock and pushed, like the note that had appeared under my pillow this morning had instructed. The solid stone gave way beneath my palm, and a door-sized section of cliff face crumbled beneath my hand. I closed my eyes as chunks of rock and lichen started falling all around me like a waterfall made of earth.

I stepped forward.

The thundering roar of Multnomah Falls abruptly faded to a soft rushing behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the crumbling wall was gone. In its place stood a pretty arched silver door carved with birch trees. Turning to face front again, I was met with an image I'd only known through my mom's stories of parties she'd attended with my dad.

The misty white wallpaper was covered in slashes like rain that only appeared when I shifted and let them catch the light. The polished gray marble floor beneath my feet was dappled through with glinting veins of silver. In front of me, down two wide steps, an enormous waterfall fell from a silver slit in the ceiling to cascade in a straight curtain to a pool tiled in pale silver and ice blue.

A curtain made of hanging crystals covered the wall behind the waterfall. The crystals glowed, illuminating the whole room in soft, sparkling light. Four more silver doors led out of the room, two on each side.

This was the Waterfall Palace, home of the Faerie Queen.

I looked around for some sign of life. Shouldn't there be a butler or something? But the room was silent and empty. Nothing moved except the waterfall pouring from the ceiling. It glimmered in the light of the crystals. I took a step toward it, then jumped back again as something soft and white brushed past my face.

A tiny white moth fluttered around my face, its wings as soft as a whisper. I couldn't imagine where it had come from, but it danced circles in the air around me, and then the same voice as before said _Follow me._

The tiny creature flew toward the door immediately to my left. It landed on the silver-latched handle for a moment before skittering back up into the air.

I reached out for the cool handle. I could only hope I had interpreting its jerky little movements correctly. It fluttered through the door and I followed. The sound from both waterfalls faded to nothing more than a whisper at the corner of my thoughts.

The hall we entered had been papered in soothing antique blue. Arched wooden doors lined the wall to the right. The left was covered in crystal-clear photographs of Oregon, showing everything from close-ups of strawberry plants to a group shots of faeries waving in front of a Portland bar to magnificent green landscapes of what I recognized as Tillamook Valley and the ocean at South Beach State Park.

I lost track of where we were after that. The hall branched onto a spiral staircase which led to a hanging silver walkway over a greenhouse. An enchanted ball of sunlight hovered in the center of the completely enclosed greenhouse, rotating slowly in the middle of the room. The whole palace seemed still and silent. I tried to shove back the nagging feeling that I was going the wrong way and should have waited for some clearer guidance. How awkward would it be to be caught wandering alone through the Faerie Queen's palace? But finally, the little moth led me to another elegant arched wooden door. It spun a quick loop around my head and then fluttered off, too quickly for me to follow.

This must be it, I thought, with the humbling realization that I was not, and never would be, ready for this.

I knocked on the door. A long moment of silence passed. I counted my heartbeats. One, two—

"Come in!" a voice called.

I didn't know if I would be able to do it. But somehow, I managed to push open the door.

A beautiful sitting room greeted me. The room was a half-circle, with a sunken seating area in the middle ringed by thriving hostas and orchids. A half-moon table stood in the middle of the sunken area, covered in food and ringed on one side by a semi-circular antique blue couch. Everything in the room was geared toward the flat side of the wall, and for good reason. Most of it seemed to be window, and there, crashing down on the other side of the glass, was a spectacular view of the inside of the waterfall.

"Wow," I breathed.

"I know!" Queen Amani said. She sounded delighted. She popped up from where she'd been sitting by the food and waved me over. I walked carefully, convinced I was about to trip on the stairs and send myself sprawling face-first into the carpet.

I realized immediately that I'd overdressed. She was in jeans and a pink t-shirt covered in tiny printed butterflies, and her hair was done in hundreds of tiny gold-threaded cornrows piled into a french braid. She offered a bright smile and dropped back down onto the couch. "Come have a seat," she said. "You can throw your coat wherever." She waved in the general direction of a bench by the door, so I unbuttoned my coat with trembling fingers and laid it carefully across the flat surface. I wasn't sure where to sit, so finally, I settled for the other end of her couch, where she seemed to be making room.

Queen Amani rotated to face me, bringing one knee up onto the couch seat. She looked like we were about to watch a movie and eat popcorn together. I felt like I was in a movie, probably one of those ones where a young nobody ended up in the President's office for questioning.

"That window is amazing," I said.

"Isn't it?" she said, her voice full of enthusiasm. "You can see through the water sometimes to the observation deck and it's the best people-watching. I love the tourists." She tilted her head to look at me more carefully. "You okay?" she said.

My nerves were showing on my face, I realized, or coming off me in waves so strong she wouldn't be able to miss them. _Reel it in, Feye,_ I ordered myself, and took a deep breath, letting my diaphragm expand until it hurt.

"I'm fine," I said. "This isn't how I spend most Monday evenings." I breathed out long and slow, waiting for my heart to stop hammering.

"I'll bet," she said. She bit her bottom lip and then said, "I guess this was kind of a surprise, huh? I always forget that. Which I know sounds weird, but after very long at this job you start realizing you can't take yourself too seriously or everything's going to end in disaster." She smiled so that I couldn't tell whether she was joking. "How's school going?"

The abrupt question t took me off guard. I opened my mouth, closed it again, then shrugged and said, "It's okay, I guess. Just a regular Humdrum high school."

"Are you going to college?"

The million-dollar question. "My dad wants me to go to his old university in Austria," I said, deciding this was the most delicate way to put it.

Queen Amani, not surprisingly, wasn't fooled. "I'll bet," she said. "But what are your plans?"

I realized how pointless it would be to lie to her. She was the Faerie Queen. If anyone could sniff out a lie from a hundred meters, it would be her. "I want to go to a state college and study plants," I said.

She leaned forward and said eagerly, "Oh, how fun! What kinds of plants?"

"All kinds," I said. It was weird having an adult take actual interest in my career plans. It was much weirder to have that adult be the queen of the realm. Weird enough that I couldn't figure out what to do with my hands. I finally sat on them. "I've been volunteering at a community garden for a few years now. I like making green spaces in the city. But I'm really interested in conservation and restoration," I said, aware of her green eyes focused on me. "There are some groups in Africa doing some cool work. They're basically just protecting the land and allowing it to heal itself. They're finding that a lot of human intervention does more harm than good in some cases."

"Shocking, right?" Queen Amani said. Her sardonic voice mirrored my own thoughts so exactly that I laughed. The sound coming from my own body made me jump. "That's so great," she said. "So do you want to go to Africa?"

"Someday," I said.

"I love it there," she said. "I've been twice. Once to South Africa and once to Kenya. Spent most of my time in meetings, but I spend a day on a wildlife reserve in Kenya on one trip and it was incredible."

"Why were you there?" I said. I bit my tongue, realizing how forward this sounded.

"Work," she said. "I travel a lot. Kenya was for a meeting with some jinn leaders and South Africa was a diversity conference. Mostly trying to remind everyone that there are lots of kinds of witches out there and we should be nice to all of them." She laughed. I didn't get the humor. It seemed to be an inside joke with herself.

"Ah," I said faintly.

"What else?" she said. "Do you have a job?"

I frowned. That seemed like the only thing she would know about me. I couldn't help picturing the horror on Lorinda's face if she realized I wasn't actually called up because I was the youngest solo godmother in the history of the firm. "I'm a junior godmother at Wishes Fulfilled," I said. "I'm supposed to be an intern but my supervisor's in the hospital and apparently they're more desperate than I thought."

"No kidding," Amani said. "That's kind of cool, though, right? Dating anyone?"

It should have felt like an interrogation, but she seemed so _pleased_ by my answers. "No," I said. I briefly considered telling her about Lucas, but then stopped. That would be stupid. We weren't dating. He was with someone else. And why would I need to tell the Faerie Queen about my love life, anyway?

"Are you hungry?" she said, turning to the table. "I wasn't sure what you liked so there's a little bit of everything. All vegetarian."

I looked over the food. She hadn't been kidding. Salad sat next to pizza, which sat next to pasta in cream sauce, which sat next to what looked like deep-fried mushrooms, which sat next to a thick lentil stew, which sat next to herbed potatoes. A giant bowl of fruit salad graced the middle of the table like a colorful centerpiece and what looked like a cheesecake was off to the side, topped with a ring of gleaming strawberries.

"I'm not that picky," I said.

"I figured you wouldn't be," Queen Amani said. She put a hand to her cheek and shook her head quickly, making a loose braid around her head fly back and forth like a golden rope. "Sorry. I'm overcompensating."

I frowned at her. That made no sense. "For what?" I said.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, watching me with wide eyes. "So much," she finally said. "I promise I'll explain it all but I have no idea where to start and I kind of don't want to freak you out. And now you're freaked out."

I was. I silently took the china plate she handed me and started putting small helpings of everything on it, trying at the same time to control my breathing and calm down. Why was I so nervous? She was just the Faerie Queen.

Just the Faerie Queen. Right.

The importance of the Faerie Queen in our world couldn't be overstated. She was everything. She made all the decisions that mattered, taking the advice of her various councils but in the end answering to no one but herself. She was wise and had abilities most of us couldn't even comprehend. Our legends said the power of her gifts kept the grass growing. When a Queen was ill, the crops failed. When she was angry, we all paid the price. And when she was glad, she could keep our entire world afloat on the power of her smile.

And she was glancing over at me like she was nervous I wouldn't like her pasta salad.

"I'm sorry," I said, putting my plate down on my lap. My stomach churned too much to allow for the thought of food. "What am I doing here?"

A huge sigh escaped her, like she'd been holding her breath in since I'd arrived. "I'm glad you asked," she said. "Honestly, I'm trying to play it cool here and I just can't. I need to talk to you."

The part of me that wasn't shaking with nerves was glad. Our attempts at small talk were almost unbearable. "About what?" I said.

"Something kind of serious," she said. Her delicate eyebrows knit together and she looked at me. I held my breath. She looked like she was about to deliver some bad news. Besides, when did "I need to talk" lead to anything good?

"Okay," I said. "Is it about my dad?"

Her eyebrows went up. "Your dad?"

"He's on the Council," I said. "He's been having some trouble at work."

"Oh," she said. She glanced out toward the window, where the white water of Multnomah Falls thundered past in heavy sheets. "We've all been having trouble. But he's doing great, all things considering. It's not about your dad. This is about you." She put a slender-fingered hand to her lips like she wasn't sure she wanted to let the next words out, then said, "I don't think you're going to like it."

"That describes most of my life lately," I said. It was the only honest thing I could think of to say. I could feel my knees quivering slightly under my skirt, so I set the plate on the table before I could knock it to the floor. It barely fit between the lentil soup and potatoes. I twisted my hands in my lap. "What is it?"

"It's nothing to worry about," she said. "No one's going to force you into anything."

"That doesn't sound comforting," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I just realized that. Okay. I'm just going to say it."

"Okay," I said.

"Okay," she said. She rolled her lips together, then blurted out quickly, "I want to select you as my heir."


	13. Chapter 13

The waterfall rumbled as though from a great distance. That was the only noise except for our breathing, which I could suddenly hear as clearly as I'd heard Queen Amani's voice a moment ago.

I blinked. My eyelids came down slow and heavy. The world seemed to have slowed down to accommodate the vast weight of her words.

"Me," I repeated. The word felt tinny and weird in my mouth, like it wasn't a real word at all. "You want me to be your heir."

I waited for someone to jump out from behind a hosta and shout "Just kidding!" or for her to laugh and tell me the real reason I'd come here. But she looked at me as intently and nervously as I'd been looking at her a moment ago. It was as if, for a moment, I wasn't looking at the Faerie Queen at all, but into a mirror where I could see myself: An uncertain girl, too young and clueless for the gravity of what was going on around us but hopeful that it wouldn't all come crashing down just yet.

"You want me to be your heir," I said. The words took on shape this time, solid and thick like wood. I let them come together in my mind, forming from disjointed sounds into concepts that meant unbelievable things. "You're going to have to back up a little."

"I figured," she said. "I thought I'd just get the punchline out there first."

"Interesting tactic," I said.

We stared at one another for a long minute. My mouth was dry as summer dust. I licked my lips. It didn't help.

Suddenly, Amani was all movement. She reached out for a jug and poured me a glass of something sweet-smelling and orange. "Mango juice," she said, handing it to me. I took a tiny sip. The cold sweetness was better than rain on my tongue.

"Okay," Amani said. "We got past the worst part. That's good, right?"

"Worst part for you, too?" I said.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Nothing against you. You're going to be amazing. I'm just getting really clear vibes off you that you do not want to be any part of this."

She'd checked in with my feelings faster than I had. I took a moment to be silent and figure out what I was feeling.

She was right. I didn't want any part of this. A substantial part of myself, in fact, was panicking.

"Again, nothing's going to happen unless you want it to," she said. "That's the first rule. If you're going to do this, you have to take it on yourself."

That wasn't how the stories went. The stories said being the Faerie Queen was a sacred calling, and that if you were chosen to be the Queen's heir, that was it. I set the juice down and folded my arms across my chest, wishing I knew how to rein in my emotions as easily. But she'd read me already.

"I know that's not how it sounds," she said. "From where you're sitting, it's probably all pomp and circumstance and ancient legends. I remember how it was when I was chosen. I thought I was going to have to commit a human sacrifice or something."

The laugh that followed reassured me a little. I'd heard that story too.

"What about stealing a human to be your lover and keeping him for seventy years?" I said.

She made a face. "Nasty. I want more from my relationships than Stockholm Syndrome. And I don't capture people in faerie rings unless I really need to get in touch with them and they won't answer my calls, and then you've got to do what you've got to do. And I don't replace people's babies with changelings, because I'm not a douche, and I don't make everyone's milk go sour. I don't even know what the point of that is supposed to be."

"I thought house sprites made milk go sour," I said.

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. "Who knows," she said. "Glad that rumor's moved on. They're all rumors. Well, maybe not everything. But most of it, it's rumor. Especially any part that says you don't get a choice right now. This is completely up to you."

She stood up and walked over to the window. Water poured down in front of her, steely blue-gray in the fading evening light. She waved me over. I stood, careful not to knock anything over, and crossed the room. She tapped a finger on the window, pointing down. "Couple's getting engaged down there," she said.

I tilted my head to see through a gap in the waterfall. A man on one knee held something out to a woman, who had her hands over her mouth. The few leftover tourists around them clapped as she nodded yes and flung her arms around him.

"It's lucky to get engaged there," Queen Amani said. "Lots of good magic. Also I'm sentimental." She cupped her hands together and I peeked over my glasses to see what was going on. A single tiny sparkle between her palms grew into a glowing blue light. She brought her hands to her mouth and blew. The light flew through the window and the waterfall like they weren't even there, then drifted like a bubble down to the couple. The spark grew and enveloped them in a pale blue glow before it faded. They posed for pictures and Amani turned back to face me. "You heard about the bridge being closed a while ago because a boulder crashed through it?" she said. "Totally my fault. I was practicing some heavy-duty combat spells on one of the top floors and all the magic flying around knocked a rock loose." She raised her shoulders, looking guilty. "Oops."

She went back to the couch and sat down. I watched the couple for a moment. They looked cold but happy. Of course they were happy. They were normal and in love. We couldn't all be that lucky.

The panic of a few moments earlier had subsided. Now, as I sat back down on the blue couch, I was just tired. I leaned back and watched Amani carefully. She didn't act like a Faerie Queen. She reminded me of one of Imogen's older sisters, Nicole, the one who was busy with her master's degree. Nicole had always been more laid back than the others, and nicer Imogen and I when we were young and annoying.

Queen Amani tucked her legs up on the couch next to her and leaned her elbow against the back of it. "I'll bet you have a million questions," she said.

"To be honest," I said, "I don't even know what to ask."

"That's okay," she said. "Why don't I just explain how it all works?"

I nodded.

"Okay," she said. "First thing you need to know is that each Faerie Queen has to pick her heir before she retires. The Queen before me was old and had been doing the job forever, and she was pretty eager to hand it off."

"Wait," I said. "Faerie Queens retire? I thought they had the job till they died." I bit my lip. It didn't feel right calling it a "job." It was so much more important than that.

Amani's serious face softened into a smile. "Oh, yeah," she said. "We retire, usually young enough to go RV around the country or open a vineyard or whatever we've been daydreaming about for the past few decades. And thank God. This job is too intense to do forever. Past queens have tried to stay kind of anonymous, though, because going out in public as a Faerie Queen gets… You start to want your privacy pretty quickly."

"I'll bet," I said. I tried to remember what I'd heard about the last queen. I could come up with nothing but rumors—that she'd died of old age, that she'd disappeared in a mysterious incident in Egypt, that she'd turned into a bubble and floated away on the evening breeze. No one knew. I'd always assumed she'd just died, like anyone else.

"The last Queen chose me when I was fifteen," she said. "That was over twenty years ago now. I've only been doing the job on my own since my early twenties."

"Where's Queen Phoebe now?" I asked. Queen Phoebe had been the monarch when I was born, but I didn't remember her. Amani had become queen when I was four years old.

She shrugged. "I have no idea," she said. "She checks in sometimes. Last I heard she was climbing mountains in Japan, but she's in a different country every time I talk to her. She's always been obsessed with languages and she's been studying slang in cultures around the world with a team of Humdrum anthropologists."

That was a side of the old Queen I'd never heard before. I bit the inside of my cheek, torn between a strange sense that none of this was really happening and an uncomfortable awareness that yes, it absolutely was. The reality and unreality of the moment tugged at each other, making the room seem fuzzy one moment and too clear the next.

"Anyway, I've been under pressure to choose an heir for a while," Amani said. Her eyes, staring at me, were almost too green. I felt a weird sense of relief coming off her, like she'd been holding this in for way too long. "It's customary to choose the heir when the current Queen is still young. Phoebe didn't really go with the program on that—Phoebe didn't really go with the program on anything, which is why I love her—but the Council's been reminding me in no uncertain terms that I should not follow in her footsteps there. They don't like loose ends," she added, which matched perfectly with what I knew of my dad. "They want the security of knowing another Queen is in the wings in case something happens to me."

She sat forward, picked a strawberry off the cheesecake, and then, after a moment of contemplation, set it back down on her plate. "The truth is they'd be fine if something did," she said. "Our community is full of resourceful, brilliant people. They'd get by just fine without me. But you try telling a room full of Glimmers that." She rolled her eyes. "The one time I tried I almost gave the Minister of Magicians a heart attack and the High Witch gasped so hard she swallowed a cream puff whole."

"But we can't survive without a Queen," I said. "The Queen gives our community its power. You protect us. You make the trees grow."

She sighed, a long, tired whisper that matched the emotions coming from her. "That's how the stories go," she said. "You want to know the truth?"

I nodded, though privately I thought I'd already heard about as much truth as I could deal with for one day.

"The truth is, the Glimmering community gives me my power, not the other way around. They help me protect them. We all make the trees grow. I'm just a figurehead. A symbol."

"Symbols have power," I said. This was one of the first lessons of magic. I'd heard it from my cradle.

"They do," she said. "But only the power people give them, do you understand?"

I shook my head, sending a loose strand of hair onto my forehead. I brushed it back. "You're the Faerie Queen," I said, as though she didn't already know this. "You lead us."

"I can only lead those who are willing to be led," she said. "You'll understand that someday if you decide to take me up on this offer." She opened her mouth, closed it again, and then said, "But anyway, the Council has been pressuring me to make a choice."

"So you landed on me, because I'm Reginald's daughter," I finished.

Amani looked startled, then shook her head quickly and laughed. I got a fleeting impression that the idea made her nervous. "God, no," she said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you being Reginald's daughter almost made me second guess myself."

Finally, something she said made sense.

"I landed on you because you because when I saw you, I recognized you. Do you know much about divination?"

"No," I said. My grandma had been good at it a long time ago, or at least she claimed, but I'd never learned. "I don't know a lot of magic, to be honest," I added. "I've never been all that interested, to tell you the truth."

She laughed, though I didn't see what was funny. I would have expected her to be horrified that her supposed heir had no interest in the field of magic, let alone the one job that required it twenty-four-seven. "Maybe that's why you're the one. Maybe we're headed for a big cultural shift," she said. "I'm good at divination. I'm good at a lot of things, but I've always been good at that. I've been scrying in the pool a lot lately." She waved toward the window, which I took to mean one of the two pools Multnomah Falls plunged into. "I've been seeing you for months. I look into the water and the pictures change but you're the one constant in all of them. And then I saw you at your brother's performance and I just couldn't stop staring."

"I noticed," I said.

"I can't even explain how exciting it was to actually see you across a room," she said. "I try to have faith in my abilities, because without trust in the process there's really no point to working magic, but I was starting to wonder if you were just wishful thinking. It's impossible with divination to tell what's real and what's just me projecting things, and of course every tiny choice we make changes the picture a little. I could change the picture tomorrow by naming someone else. Trust me, there are plenty of people lining up for the job. Like I said, I've been under a lot of pressure lately. I was almost ready to just pick someone so the Council would get off my back and let me go focus on the magic I actually need to be focusing on."

Her voice spiked on the last few words. "And what's that?" I said.

Her eyes glinted. "Magic that keeps us safe," she said. "I meant it when I said everyone could probably survive without me, if that was their choice. But it's not their choice yet. They still think they need me, which means there are a few enemies to our world that could cause a lot of trouble. A lot of my time and energy goes to keeping them locked down. That's a lot of what my job is. Our world exists in a fine balance. I try to keep it there while pushing us toward a better future."

This, at last, sounded interesting. Not like something I wanted to do, of course, but something I wouldn't mind hearing more about. But prying into the Faerie Queen's enemies probably wasn't the wisest course of action right now. It might show enthusiasm for the job. "Sounds exhausting," I said.

Again, she smiled, though I couldn't see why anything I'd said would make her smile. "It is," she said. "Unbelievably. It'll drive you crazy and break your heart all in the same day. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

There was another old legend about the Faerie Queen, that she'd gone mad with all the power of her position. Maybe, I thought, I should consider believing it.

"I know that sounds nuts," she said. She read me before I'd thought anything out fully. It was like being around Imogen but worse. "It's great, though. There's nothing quite like pushing yourself to your limits and then realizing you're still standing. I do that every day."

She watched me for a long, quiet moment. I didn't know what to say. Nothing she'd said made me think that I wanted her job. It sounded like a lot of work, and a lot of politics, and a lot of stress—and in the end, she didn't even think we really needed her. What was the point of that?

"What if I say no?" I said.

"Then you say no," she said. Her voice stayed calm, like, despite her words, it didn't matter to her whether I went along with this crazy scheme or not. "I keep looking for someone else I think can handle it. The offer stays open until then. Either you change your mind, or I find someone else and start to train them."

"And will you?" I said.

"Not yet," she said. "I hope you'll change your mind. Like I told you before, I only hold this role because our people believe in me. I think you're strong enough to encourage those same levels of belief."

"You make us sound like Santa Claus," I said.

She laughed again, a surprised sound that made me nervous. "I'd never thought of it that way," she said. "I guess we are. We're not that different from the Humdrums, you know? We need people to believe in us before we can really become anything." She shrugged. "It's best if you can believe in yourself, of course, but it's much easier when you have a group of people to carry you through. And so much of my magic comes from them. They send me their energy every day just by thinking I'm important. And I guess I don't want to let them down, so I become important." She let her head drop onto the back of the couch. "That will make a lot more sense when you've been doing this a while._ If _you do this for a while," she corrected, looking over at me.

I looked down at my plate of untouched food, then at the window. The sun had set, and hundreds of gallons rushed by in darkness behind the reflection of our room's lamps. "I don't think I want to," I said.

I took a deep breath. I was talking to the Faerie Queen, I reminded myself, and she was talking to me like an equal. I didn't need to act like a nervous kid who did whatever she was told. I wasn't that kid. I didn't want to be.

"I have plans for my life," I said. My voice came out clear and loud, perhaps for the first time since I'd set foot in the palace. "I want to go to college and study plants. I'm already too much in the public eye because of my dad's job, and I don't like it. The only reason I'm working as a godmother right now is so I can save up enough money to get myself into the normal world and build a life of my own. Being your heir is an honor—it really is—but it's not for me."

Amani watched me, listening closely and keeping her eyes trained on my face. When I was done, she nodded once, just barely.

"Okay," she said, and she sounded like she meant it. "I'm not going to pretend I'm not disappointed, but I'm glad you know what you want. Thanks for being honest with me."

"You too," I said. "I really am grateful for the chance, it's just—"

"Not right," she finished. "Not what you want."

"Yeah," I said.

"I can respect that," she said. She let out a deep sigh. "Well, at least we survived this. Trying to tell someone they're in line for the throne is terrifying."

"No kidding," I said dryly. Whatever she'd been going through was nothing compared to the experience from this side. Again, she read me and laughed.

"Hey, listen," she said, almost as if she was trying to be casual but couldn't quite manage it. "Did you tell your parents you were coming here?"

"No," I said.

To my surprise, she said, "Good. Do you mind if we maybe don't tell them? Nothing against your dad, but I _really_ don't want to have to fend him off at every Council meeting."

Finally, it was my turn to laugh. Dad had always talked about his seasonal Council meetings with the Faerie Queen as though they were respected colleagues engaged in a worshipful mutual appreciation society. Instead, I realized, she read his personality about like I did. "That would be fantastic," I said. "I'm already having to fight to not end up at his school in Austria. Trying to explain to him that I turned down the job of Faerie Queen…" I shuddered. I couldn't even begin to think about it.

"And Olivia?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"Just remember one thing: The door is open until it's closed."

"It's not going to close because of me," I said.

She needed to understand that. I wasn't going to be the Faerie Queen, and I didn't want to leave her with some half-formed hope that it was going to happen. I was going to be a nice boring botanist living out a nice boring life, far away from the world of faeries and magicians and white moths that guided the way through hidden castles. Wishing for anything else was one wish I couldn't grant.

"Okay," she said. "If that's what you want."

"That's what I want."


	14. Chapter 14

I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. The Waterfall Palace had been full of even more magical energy than I had realized, and my body was feeling it.

I had spent yesterday evening at the Waterfall Palace.

I groaned and fell back into exhausting dreams for another five minutes before my alarm went off again.

By the time study hall rolled around and my migraine had only gotten worse, I realized I should have stayed home in bed. But it was already too late.

"How'd it go?" Imogen whispered. I had three texts from her from last night and this morning asking the same thing. I hadn't responded to any of them. How was I supposed to explain what last night had been like? There was no way Imogen would understand. I knew without even asking that she would have taken the offer on the spot.

I nudged my chin toward the front of the room, where Mr. Duncan was grading papers. Imogen sighed, and I tried to go back to focusing on my math homework. But a second later, Imogen's handwriting appeared in pink on the scratch paper I was scribbling numbers on. _What happened?_

I bit the inside of my lip and chewed on it. Finally, I wrote, _She wanted to talk about work._ It was close enough to true. I had mentioned my job, and we'd talked a lot about what she wanted my job to be. The words faded from my paper to somewhere on Imogen's. Half a math problem later and my scratch paper was again littered with her loopy handwriting.

_What did she say? Are you going to be famous now?_

I couldn't even begin to explain. _No,_ I wrote back. _She was just curious. We talked about my dad__'__s work, too. I think she__'__s just trying to keep her finger on the pulse of the Glim community._

_She__'__s the freaking Faerie Queen,_ Imogen wrote back. _She doesn__'__t need to have dinner with you to figure out how everything__'__s going. There must have been more to it than that._

_Maybe,_ I wrote. _Sorry. I need to finish these problems. This is due next period._

_Sure,_ she replied. _Full details later! _She added a smiley face. I closed my eyes and tried to calm the throbbing in my head.

When the bell rang, I shoved my papers together and stood, hoping to make it to the door before Imogen was done. But she was right beside me. She was all legs and I had to take two steps for every one of hers just to seem like I was in a hurry.

"So what did she say?" she asked, voice and eyes both more eager than I wanted.

I caught a glimpse of trees through a classroom window. They were in full bloom, loaded with pink flowers. I would have traded anything to be up in their branches, looking down at people walking below who didn't even know I was there. But of course, Imogen would find me no matter where I was. We always knew how to find each other.

"I don't really remember," I said. "I was super nervous. We just talked for a while and she told me a little bit about her job as Queen and the Council meetings she goes to, and that was it."

I felt sick lying to Imogen. I never lied to her. But I couldn't find words for the truth. My head pounded every time I tried to think that hard.

"I need details!" Imogen said. I could feel excitement pulsing from her, the same desire she felt to hang out with the Glimmering elite multiplied by ten.

I couldn't handle her excitement right now. "I have to find Elle," I said. "We can talk about it later, okay?" She stopped, surprised, and I ducked through a pair of guys in band T-shirts and down the hall, but not quickly enough to miss the wave of hurt that rolled off her.

The longest fight Imogen and I had ever had was when we were fifteen, and it had lasted almost twenty-seven hours. This had been nothing, but it was still close enough to fighting to make me nervous with shared pain. I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I walked down the hall in search of Elle.

_Sorry,_ I texted. _I need to go deal with Elle and then I__'__m headed home. Had a killer migraine all day from all the magic at the palace. I__'__ll tell you about it later. Promise. _The missing clarification of _how_ much later glared at me from the pale gray screen, but this had to be good enough for now. _I__'__m going to tell Elle about her mom this weekend, _I added, wanting to make up for my omission with an extra shot of truth. _DON__'__T TELL LORINDA._


	15. Chapter 15

Guilt made people do stupid things. I couldn't believe just how stupid until I was actually standing inside Gilt with Imogen on one side and Elle on the other. Imogen kept sending me wide-eyed looks, every one of them asking _Are you out of your freaking mind?_

Maybe I was. This would probably cost me my job. But I didn't care. I didn't care so much I hadn't bothered to pull the hood of my jacket up over my head, even though it had started to rain. It was a pretty lame attempt at badassery, but I didn't care about that either.

Trying to juggle everything wasn't working, and hadn't been from the beginning. Maybe being told I could be the next Faerie Queen had given me an extra shot of confidence, or maybe I was just so bad at the godmothering thing that I'd hit the far edge of desperation.

Whatever it was, I'd decided: If I was going to be a faerie godmother, I was going to do it my way, and that meant letting Elle know exactly who I was to her.

Imogen had made us both dress up for the occasion. She was in tight jeans and a sparkly top in exactly the shade of baby blue that made her skin look like cream and rose petals. She'd talked me into borrowing a flouncy skirt and low-cut silver top. Elle had flatly refused to borrow anything, but, upon being told we were going to a fancy club, had showed up in tight leather pants and a corset top that made her look like she'd stepped out of a big-budget comic book movie with a kickass heroine. "Part of my steampunk costume," she'd explained.

"Of course it is," I'd said, then been shut up by her reminder that she didn't have to be there.

Gilt was tucked into a corner of downtown Portland. We entered through a plain back door that looked like it was only there for deliveries to the restaurants on either side. We flashed our ID cards at the bouncer, flipping our hands over the way Kyle had done when I'd first met him. Elle eyed my palm suspiciously, but seemed to conclude it was a clever magic trick. "She's with us," I said, nodding toward Elle.

The bouncer was a skinny girl in her early twenties who looked like she couldn't knock out a fly, but I knew better. Her aura was laced with maroon dots floating like stars around her. She was the kind of skilled magician I didn't want to cross. She waved us in.

"Great security," Elle said, raising her eyebrow back at the girl as we passed. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic.

The door led straight to a flight of stairs, the walls papered in silvery green and lit by small teardrop-shaped crystal lamps. It was unexpectedly classy.

"I thought this was a restaurant," Elle said.

"Downstairs is," Imogen said. "The top floor's ours."

We stepped off the wide landing, through a door, and into one of the most decadent rooms I'd ever seen.

"I didn't realize you guys were rich," was Elle's first comment.

I looked around the room. "I didn't realize we were, either," I said. I'd never been any place this elegant except for the Waterfall Palace. I'd given Imogen a full description of the palace already, hoping it would make up for my lackluster explanation of my conversation with Amani. This club didn't quite put it to shame, but I was surprised and a little weirded out by how close it came.

The first thing I noticed was the walls. They were the same silvery herb color of the hallway, accented here and there with gold leaf. The trim around the room was brushed in gold, as were the crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, the tables that lined the edge of the dance floor, and the mostly-empty dance floor itself. I was wearing the nicest clothes Imogen owned and still felt wildly underdressed.

"This is so much better than I imagined," Imogen hissed in my ear. She was practically glowing as she waved across the room at someone.

"Who's that?" I said.

She shrugged. "No idea," she said in an undertone. "Just makes us look like we know someone."

Imogen's talent for glamours was not limited to magic. Her way of moving in a room like she absolutely belonged there was convincing without a single touch of enchantment helping her along.

She sidled across the edge of the room and sank down at a golden table, which had a centerpiece of rosemary, lavender, and oregano sprigs dancing their way up from a gold-leafed bud vase.

I pretended to survey the room like Imogen was. I felt like the world's most awkward impostor.

Imogen was practically bouncing in her seat. "I'm going to go get drinks," she said. Her voice was tight with barely suppressed glee. She stood up, then turned back to us and leaned in with both hands on the table. "You should probably start explaining," she said to me. "Before it gets weird in here."

It was good advice. But as always, I had no idea where to start. I waited until she was halfway to the gold-draped nonalcoholic bar across the room before turning to Elle.

"So," I said.

"So," she said, not wasting time on small talk. "You're going to tell me about my mom."

I wished she was the kind of person to get distracted just a bit more easily. This place would have had her sisters gaping and noticing everything, I was sure. But Elle was already bored with the room. She had her full attention on me; clearly, I was the evening's entertainment.

I swallowed. There was no right way to do this. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. "I guess the best place to start—"

I was cut off by a loud sound echoing across the room. It took me a second to recognize it as someone's voice. "Knights and ladies, princes and princesses, witches, wizards, faeries, and more: Get ready to party!" This unexpectedly cliche announcement was immediately replaced by the pulsing beat of electronica music, and the elegant lights dimmed to faint yellow glimmers in the dark. People piled onto the floor like ants, and it was all of ten seconds before a swarthy jinn had multicolored sparks playing between his hands and lighting up the room in a shifting rainbow glow.

"Does he have fireworks in here?" Elle said, leaning forward. She had to shout to be heard over the music.

"Those aren't fireworks," I said. "Listen, Elle, there's something you need to know."

"I can't hear you!" she shouted. She pointed at her ear, then I saw her eyes pop open as a faerie on the floor flapped open her wings and started spinning in tight circles, making them glow in iridescent patterns in the rainbow lights. She pointed at them, jabbing her finger with about as much discretion as Bigfoot. I slapped her hand down.

"Don't point," I shouted. "It's rude. They're decorative."

"What are you talking about?" she shouted back.

"They're not attached!" I said. I was sick of shouting. She was going to know everything in a few minutes anyway. I may as well cut straight to the chase.

I held my hands out in front of me a few inches apart. The air between them frissoned and grew warm, and after a moment, a hazy white bubble formed between my palms. It grew. Elle stared.

"What the hell is that?" she shrieked.

"Shut up," I ordered, not because I needed to concentrate, but because I really didn't need anyone here thinking I'd brought an actual Humdrum into the biggest Glim club in town. As soon as the ball was big enough to fill both palms, I focused on the air around our table and smashed my hands together. The ball shrunk rapidly in on itself and then exploded, forming a translucent white shell around us before disappearing. The noise of the room instantly lowered as if someone had turned a dial down.

Normally the spell was invisible, at least to people who couldn't see magic like I could. But I'd wanted her attention, and I had it.

"What the _hell,_" she repeated. She shoved her chair away from the table and was halfway standing before I even realized she'd moved.

"Sit down," I ordered, my voice sharper than usual. "You wanted to know about your mom, so you're going to hear about your mom."

"What is going on?" she demanded, but she sat back down. She stared at me, her hands poised on the table, ready to send her up and away again at a second's notice.

This was more like it. I laced my fingers together and enjoyed the moment of silence. She was too stunned to do anything but stare. "I'm a faerie," I said.

"I don't know what that means," she said.

I tilted my head. "Really?" I said, allowing my voice to be just as sardonic as it liked. "You don't know what a faerie is? You, Lady Geek?"

"Being a geek doesn't mean I don't have a grasp on reality," she said. "How did you just do that?"

"This is going to take a long time if you have to argue with everything," I said. "I'm a faerie. I do magic. What you just saw was magic. Everyone in this room can do it. You probably could too if you had a little training."

Elle's eyebrows were so far up on her forehead I was worried they were about to disappear into her wispy blond hairline. "Are you on drugs?"

"I'm on magic," I said. "Your mom could do it, too. That's why we're here. We're going to talk about your mom. And it would be cool if you could rein in the attitude long enough to get through this conversation, because I can't even explain how much trouble I'm risking by being straight with you."

"Why would you be in trouble?" she asked. Her eyes didn't exactly look more relaxed, but they were slightly smaller than teacup saucers now, which I chose to count as progress.

I gestured to her with both pointer fingers in a steeple. "You're not supposed to know you have magic," I said. "I'm under really strict orders from your dad about that. I'll going to lose my job. But to be honest, I don't even care right now. I hate my job."

"What's your job?"

"We'll get there," I said. "We're talking about your mom first. What do you remember about her?"

Elle looked down at the table. She searched the uneven patterns in the gold leaf as though looking for an answer, or maybe an escape out of here. But when she looked up, her gaze was soft. "Just normal mom stuff, I guess," she said. "She was really nice, I remember that. She liked to sing. She liked animals."

She glanced behind my shoulder. I snapped my fingers.

"Focus," I said. "Anything weird?"

"What do you mean, weird?"

"I mean, anything weird? Did she do anything that seems odd to you now?"

"Like what?" Elle said.

"You tell me."

She was silent for a moment, her eyes darting around in every direction as she searched her memories. "She used to be really good at making puppet shadows," she said. "You know how you set up a lamp and make a dog silhouette with your hands or a butterfly or whatever? She was really good at that. Like, too good."

"Yeah," I said. "What else?"

Elle thought again, then shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "She wasn't really weird. She knew some crazy people, though. She used to run this stall at the Saturday Market and I'd go with her sometimes. Almost every week, a few of the same people would show up. But, you know, they weren't that different. It's Portland. Everyone's a little weird."

"That's because over half of Oregon's magical population lives in Portland," I said. "They blend in by standing out. Who do you remember?"

She frowned. "There was a guy who always had butterflies with him. He was really tall and skinny and he always had a couple butterflies just chilling on his clothes. A big blue one was on his shoulder almost every time I saw him."

"Probably a dryad," I said. "Or a faerie."

Elle's eyebrows drew down a little as she looked at me. "And an older woman who could make anything happen just by saying it. It was freaky. She'd say 'It will rain soon' when it was completely sunny, and we'd have a storm in minutes, or she'd say 'That man will offer me exactly the kind of amethyst necklace I've been looking for' and five minutes later, a guy from another stall would walk up and announce to us all that he was putting a bunch of his jewelry on sale for the last hour of the day. It was just coincidence, but—"

"Not coincidence," I interrupted. "She was a witch. I'd put money on it. A good one."

"What makes you so sure those people were… magical?" Elle asked. "I thought most of them just had schizophrenia or something."

"Like I said. Plain sight."

"Huh," Elle said. She eyed me, then said, "And what? My mom was a witch too?" Even after she'd seen me work magic and had an entire dance floor of people full of people with wings and horns who kept shooting sparkles at each other, she sounded skeptical, or like I was about to insult her.

I plucked a single tiny flower from the lavender sprig in front of me and held it in my palm. The minuscule purple bell sat there for a second, then shrunk to a black seed. The seed cracked open to reveal a hair of green, which grew in my palm, sprouting leaves and shooting upward. When it was over a foot tall, small purple buds appeared, then pushed themselves forward and bloomed. When my lavender looked exactly like the one in the vase in front of me, I let the warm energy in my palm subside, and put the sprig into the vase next to the other one. "I'm not sure what your mom was," I said to Elle as she reached for the lavender and pulled it out of the vase. She turned it over in her hands, then pinched off the top and broke the stem apart, apparently looking for the hidden strings that held it all together. "She did a lot of charm work, from what I understand, which means she was probably a witch or a magician. Maybe a wizard or sorcerer, but that doesn't seem as likely."

"Why not?" Elle asked, looking up at me like she was about to vault across the room. I pushed a wave of calming energy toward her, helped along by the lavender, which always made it easier for me to do those kinds of spells.

"Wizards don't usually marry Humdrums," I said.

"What are Humdrums?"

"Everyone else," I said. "Your mom was what we call a Glimmer. Your dad is a Humdrum."

"Are wizards prejudiced?" Elle asked.

Of course Elle's first serious question about our world was something to do with social rights. At least she was talking about wizards like they were something real and not just weirdos in movies.

"Not exactly," I said. "Wizards just tend to be kind of up in their heads. They mostly marry other wizards, because other wizards are the only ones who can talk magical theory with them in enough detail. Apparently debating planetary alignment is enough to keep marriages together."

"I get that," Elle said. "Knowledge is sexy."

Imogen dropped down at our table, three glasses pressed together between her hands. I hadn't even felt or seen her coming. She made a surprised squeak when she sat down and our quiet bubble enveloped her. She looked at Elle, then me, and said, "So. You know."

"I'm not sure if I believe it," Elle said, but it was too late. She did believe it. Her eyes were too hungry as they devoured the room. She'd realized this was real, and she was fascinated.

It was probably the best response I could have hoped for. At least now she was looking at me like I was someone interesting instead of a creepy stalker who wouldn't leave her alone. I jumped on the chance to explain exactly how much of a creepy stalker I wasn't.

"So your mom was a Glimmer," I said, trying to bring her back to the conversation. Reluctantly, she took her eyes off the daemon breakdancing in the middle of the floor and dragged them back up to me. "And so am I. And the reason I'm telling you that is because—"

"Olivia's your faerie godmother!" Imogen blurted. She clapped a hand to her mouth and looked over at me with big eyes. "Sorry!" she said. "I've been dying to tell her for weeks." She send me a wave of apology and pushed my wine-red drink across the table. "Elderberry nectar and fairy dust," she said. "With just a hint of cinnamon. I figured you could use the courage."

It was sweet and dark and spicy all at once. The fairy dust in the juice washed against the back of my throat with a pleasant fizz. I felt it hit my system a moment later, giving me just a sprinkling more magic than I'd had a moment before.

Imogen pushed a pale purple drink in a martini glass over to Elle. "Fuchsia berry juice infused with violets, mixed with Sprite," she said. "No magic in it for you."

"And what's yours?" I said, eying her small glass. It was orange-red and swirled with what looked like glitter. Sparkling sugar edged the rim of the glass.

"Pretty much straight fairy dust," she said with a grin. "I think blood orange juice is in there somewhere, but it's mostly fairy dust."

"Way to make good choices," I said. I rolled my eyes at Elle, although of course Elle didn't realize what a bad decision drinking anything that heavy on fairy dust usually was. The buzz was like with caffeine: High and fun and amping up your magic like nothing else, followed by a hard crash that usually involved disorientation and not being able to get spells working again till at least the next afternoon.

"Don't judge me," Imogen said. "Sometimes you just have to let yourself feel good. Anyway, whatever I'm doing, it's working. The most gorgeous elf guy is over at the bar. He was talking about some kind of drama that's been going on at the fountain in his neighborhood where it's, like, giving out gold coins for the wrong stuff. Everyone thinks it's cursed or whatever." She waved a hand around, dismissing the idea. Stories like that were always going around, saying that this monument was cursed or touching that one was lucky. It was never more than rumor, but that didn't seem to stop our community freaking out over every new far-fetched story. "Anyway, I told him about that time the Oracle's Fountain at work gave Lorinda a Chanel handbag instead of gold coins, and long story short, I got his number!" She pulled her phone out of her pocket to show us. "And you know what that means?"

"Um, guys still think you're hot, like they have every day ever?" I said.

She shot me a quelling, look, though the emotions bubbling around her were obviously pleased by the comment. "No," she said. "It means we are _in._ There's no point coming to Gilt if no one wants you here, but someone—" she tapped the phone lying on the table "—obviously does." She raised her glass. I gave in and clinked drinks with her. I didn't get the big deal. To Imogen, though, this was a major moment.

"Faerie godmother," Elle said, cutting sharply back into the conversation. "Are you serious? I thought faerie godmothers were supposed to be, like, old and grandmotherly."

"You'd think, right?" I said. I tried too late to rein in the annoyance in my voice. "Nope," I said, more calmly. "Faerie godmothers come in all ages and shapes and sizes, including incompetent teenagers who should seriously not have been given the job. There are faerie godfathers too, though not as many of them. It's a female-dominated field, historically, though a couple advocacy groups are trying to change that."

"And what? You're supposed to watch over me or something? Like a guardian angel?"

"I hope not," I said. "Nobody's got time for that. No, I'm assigned to you for a really specific case. Your dad hired me. Well, technically, he hired my supervisor, but my supervisor got in a drunk flying accident and she's in the hospital." I'd received a slightly panicked paper airplane from Tabitha only this morning, saying that Lorinda had been updating her on the case but to please contact her if I needed anything, followed by about a hundred tips on how not to screw this up. I was fast on my way to breaking most of them. "I'm only with you until your dad's wish comes true."

"What the hell would my dad wish for me?" Elle said. She set her glass down on the table with an angry clink. "He's not trying to get me out of Pumpkin Spice, is he?"

"Not exactly," I said. "He actually…" I looked at her, shook my head, and sighed. "Elle, your dad is clueless." And I explained exactly what he'd hired us for.

Elle listened with a faintly shellshocked expression on her face. When I wrapped up, she repeated slowly, "A 'perfect teen movie'?"

"Yeah," I said. "Like I said."

"Oh my God," Elle said. I felt a little rush of validation: She sounded exactly as disgusted as I'd thought she would. "He's, like… You _want_ to like him. But then you realize how incredibly not there he is and it's like, big surprise."

Imogen tilted her head. "Have you ever had therapy?" she asked. I kicked her under the table. Elle didn't dignify the question with an answer. She was already too busy putting together the next pieces of the puzzle.

"Tyler Breckenridge," she said, turning an accusing gaze on me.

I held up my hands in submission. "Most popular boy at your school," I said. "I know it's the world's worst idea, but I have to honor the terms of the wish. That's my job."

"What a crappy job," Elle said.

I suddenly wanted to hug her. Finally, someone understood, without my having to explain a thing. "Yup," I said. "I'm only in it to save up for college."

"Kind of like I'm only putting up with my dad's stupid business practices to save up to buy the place from him," Elle said. "I hear you."

"It's not worth it, though," I said. "The past couple weeks have sucked. I'm bowing out and I'll try to close your case instead of getting it transferred. I like you, and I respect you too much to push you into such a stupid situation. That's the bottom line."

Elle leaned back, one hand playing with the stem of her martini glass. Her brown eyes surveyed me, tracing my face like she was looking for something. "Don't quit just yet," she said. "Maybe we can find a way to work it out. Maybe there's a way to modify the terms. You said I'm a Cinderella what?"

"Archetype," I said. "You're supposed to live out the Cinderella story."

"Why?" she said.

"Brings balance to our world," I said. I shrugged. I didn't really understand how it worked. No one but the Oracle, the Faerie Queen, and a bunch of obscure Glim academics did.

Imogen had a theory, though. "The stories that have become Archetypes are the ones that have played out hundreds of times," she said. "History repeats itself. If you have enough signs, you're a Cinderella. And history tells us that there's only one way Cinderella's story ends happily: She goes to the ball with her prince. A godmother's job is to get you to happily ever after."

"And what if my idea of happily ever after doesn't match?" Elle said.

It was a question we were never encouraged to ask, because we already knew the answer. Stories that didn't wrap up the way they should ended badly, and the godmother who had failed was left standing in front of the Oracle as the Oracle ignored her, denying her right to even ask for payment. It was the worst thing that could happen to a godmother. And that was only what usually happened. I'd heard whispers of curses for people who'd messed up badly enough. Being a lowly intern would keep me safe from that. Or at least that's what I was betting on. "Stuff doesn't go well," I said. "I have to meet the terms of your wish."

"My dad's wish," Elle corrected.

"Your dad's wish," I agreed.

Elle bit her bottom lip, then looked up at me and offered a small smile. "Thank you," she said. "For being honest with me. And for sticking your neck out like that."

"You deserve to know," I said. _We don__'__t judge, we do,_ a little voice in my head reminded me. I mentally swatted it away like it was an obnoxious fly.

Queen Amani had brought me to her palace to tell me she thought I had what it took to be the Faerie Queen. I didn't want the job, but that visit had told me one thing: She must have thought I was capable of making some kinds of decisions if she'd considered me for the role of ultimate judge and arbiter of our world. "No one should try to run your life without your consent," I said.

"Thanks," Elle said again, as Imogen sent me a _good job_ feeling and a smile from across the table. "This drink is amazing." She leaned in, eyes alive with interest. "Tell me more about magic."


	16. Chapter 16

I was a junior godmother, but I was also still an intern, which meant most of the tedious work fell to me. Most weeks, I dreaded the Saturday shift and watched the clock until it was over. This week, I walked past the first spring sparrows hollering at each other from between the trees, through the doors, and into the elevator with a lightness in my step I couldn't pin down to the fairy dust in my drink.

Last night had been spectacular. Elle had bombarded me with questions about magic. We'd spent an hour brainstorming ways I could get out of forcing her and Tyler to prom together, and the next two hours dancing in the middle of the floor, crushed between the Glimmering elite, who, it turned out, knew how to throw a good party.

Last night had been the first time I felt like maybe I could do this godmother thing after all, and that made the prospect of a Saturday spent filing case reports and booking client meetings feel like just another feather in my classy professional cap.

The confident euphoria lasted until about two steps through the door.

"What did you do?" Lorinda barked. She swooped down on me, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor as she crossed the room, each one sounding like a tiny distant gunshot. Her baby blue business suit stood in direct contrast to the look of outrage on her face. I felt my body shrink in on itself.

"You are a faerie godmother at Wishes Fulfilled," she bellowed. I couldn't tell if she was shouting or if the anger pulsing outward from her just made it seem that way. "You have certain responsibilities, not the least of which is to _honor client wishes regarding confidentiality!_"

I didn't know what to do. Playing dumb seemed like a stupid option at this point. I scrambled to regain some sense of last night's confidence. It was gone.

"What are you talking about?" I said, playing for time. I didn't even sound convincing to myself.

"You were specifically and explicitly told to keep your client unaware of her connection to the Glimmering world," Lorinda said. "Your client should not even know our world exists. And yet, last night, you willfully disobeyed your instructions and told her everything. Is that or is that not correct?"

She looked up, and I followed her gaze. Imogen stood in the corner of the room, staring at us in horror. Lorinda snapped her eyebrows high onto her forehead, and Imogen turned quickly away to go back to making copies.

"Well?" Lorinda demanded. I sent a silent plea to Imogen to rescue me, but knew she couldn't do anything.

"That's correct," I said. I wished I could make the rest of myself as small as my voice.

"Why?" Lorinda said.

I couldn't speak. Hot pressure welled up behind my eyes and I could feel my face flushing with red heat. I swallowed, hard. _Don__'__t cry,_ I ordered. _You__'__re at work. Do not cry. Don__'__t cry. _After a few slow, calming breaths, I said, still in the tiny voice, "I don't know."

How could I not know? I'd known last night. I'd been all hear-me-roar last night. Now, every justification I'd had about respect and free will was melting in the face of Lorinda's glare.

Lorinda put one of her hands on her hip. I could barely tell, because my gaze was glued to the floor. I couldn't force myself to lift my head. "Not good enough," she said.

Everyone's eyes were on me, their energy piercing through the air like a dozen hot sunbeams. I glanced up to the side. Imogen had stopped pretending to make copies and was watching me. She drew her eyebrows together and tried to send me sympathy through her look. I tried to smile back, but my face wouldn't cooperate.

I took a deep breath and tried to push the words out. "I didn't think it was right," I said. My voice came out on a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I think it's wrong to be a godmother to someone without their knowledge," I said. I swallowed. Everything about my throat seemed huge and dry. "People deserve to have the opportunity to consent before we start playing God with their lives."

Lorinda's mouth dropped open and her eyebrows shot up. It was probably the most audacious thing anyone had ever said to her. I wished someone would turn me into a toad so I could hop away and hide under the nearest desk.

"It's _wrong_ to be a godmother?" Lorinda repeated. She enunciated every word, making each one of them sound like either stupidity or accusation, sometimes both. "You think what we do here is wrong, Olivia?"

I swallowed again, hard enough to make my throat hurt, and said, "It's wrong if we don't have our clients' permission."

Her mouth opened again, this time in disbelief rather than offense, and she blinked at me several times. "I really don't know what to say," she said, then continued to say things. "I don't think I can even speak to you right now. You have a lot of work to do. I suggest you get started, and maybe prove to me that I shouldn't fire you. Because I am this close." She held up her hand. Her manicured thumb and forefinger quivered barely a hair's breadth apart.

She held her hand there in the air, waiting for the image to sink in, then scoffed, turned around, and stalked back to her office. She slammed the door behind her and closed her blinds.

A long moment of silence passed while I watched the ground, giving everyone in the room the chance to pretend to get back to what they were doing. Then I made a beeline for my cubicle, sat down, and threw up a privacy glamour that looked like a solid gray cubicle-colored wall. Imogen walked through it a moment later, the glamour rippling around her.

"Oh my God," she said. She waved her hand, magicking a spindly gold stool into the small space, and sat down. "Are you okay?"

I spun around. "Did you tell her?" Imogen couldn't have told her, I thought. Imogen never would have done that to me. But she had been the only person in that conversation besides me and Elle, and Elle had barely even heard Lorinda's name.

Imogen looked hurt. "No," she said. "Of course not. Why would I do that?"

I propped my elbows on the desk and let my head drop into my hands. "I don't know," I said. "Of course you wouldn't." I felt defeated. The one thing about all of this that had felt right had turned around to bite me in the butt. What kind of omen was that for the rest of my life?

"I have no idea how she found out," Imogen said. "Maybe someone overheard us."

"We were in a quiet bubble and the room was super loud," I said. "Anyone who eavesdropped would have had to use magic, and I would have felt it."

"Sometimes I think Lorinda sees everything," Imogen said. "Lisa's the same way." Lisa was her boss over in the Department of Tests &amp; Quests. She and Lorinda shared an uncanny ability to know exactly what all their staff were doing at any given moment, but this was above and beyond even what I'd expected.

The air was too hot in this tiny box. I pulled my wand out of my hair and stirred the air with it, sending a cool breeze circling inside the gray walls. For extra measure, and because the beach sounded like a hell of a nicer place to be than here, I gave my wand an extra flick and added the salty scent of the sea. It was calming, if only because it reminded me that places other than Wishes Fulfilled existed.

"I thought I'd have a chance to tell her myself."

"I know," Imogen said. "I'm so sorry, Liv."

"I hate this," I said to my keyboard, which was lying between my elbows like it was as deathly sick of this job as I was. "I don't want to be here."

"Maybe that's because you shouldn't be here," Imogen said. She wrapped an arm around me and gave me a squeeze. "You're supposed to be in college studying dumb plants with a bunch of boring Humdrums, remember?"

I laughed a little, though I wasn't totally sure whether I was laughing or just trying not to cry.

"Why are you still here, Liv?" Imogen asked. "You've never wanted this job."

"I thought you were excited for me," I said.

"I was," she said. She scooted her seat closer so she could prop an elbow on my desk. "But that's because I was paying attention to me, not you. Like, I wish I my supervisor would land in the hospital so I could be a real Proctor. That sounds bad," she said, and amended, "I don't actually wish she was in the hospital. But you know. It would be awesome to get fast-tracked to my career like that. But the way you were last night with Elle? It made me realize that you're not me. You don't want what I want. You don't want to be doing this. So why do it?"

I sniffed. Every time I cried, or even got anywhere in a ten-mile radius of crying, I started leaking like my face was a badly built roof and my emotions were the storm of the century. I took the tissue Imogen handed me and tried to mop up some of the mess. "I can't pay for college if I don't do this," I said.

"There are other jobs," she said.

"Because flipping burgers is going to be so much better."

An ominous feeling suddenly loomed over my cubicle, like the sun had just gone behind a cloud. Imogen looked at me, and I looked at her, and then we both looked at the glamoured door. Imogen swore under her breath.

"Get out of here," I said. The tears dried up in an instant.

"Don't be stupid," she said. "Is that what I think it is?"

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I'd recognize that particular storm cloud anywhere. "Seriously, Imogen," I said. "You don't want to stick around for this. I'll meet up with you later, okay? I get off at four."

She squeezed my shoulder again, nodded, and then darted back through the glamoured wall. A few second later, I heard footsteps. I set my jaw, waved my hand, and let the glamour fall away.

"Hi, Dad," I said.

There was no point letting him know I'd been crying, or suggesting that maybe my professional failures were none of his business. He walked into my cubicle like he owned it, looked down his Grecian nose at me, straightened the perfectly straight collar of his suit, and waited for me to say something.

But I wasn't stupid. I kept my mouth shut.

We waited, each sizing the other up. If the standoff had gone on a few seconds longer it would have been time for a spaghetti western theme to start up and tumbleweeds to roll through the office, but he finally spoke.

"I am disappointed to call you a Feye," he said.

I immediately tried to convince myself that didn't sting. _Who wanted to be a Feye?_ I thought. _I__'__m working here so I can get out of that trap._ But the words were just shields I'd thrown up too late. It didn't help that his voice boomed loud enough that I was sure all my coworkers had heard it. I put out my hands to create a quiet bubble like the one I'd made for Elle, but he held up a hand. "No magic," he ordered. "I question whether you have even earned your right to use magic."

I didn't say anything. There was no point.

He didn't care what I had to say, or what the extenuating circumstances might have been, or that I was perfectly capable of making my own decisions. He only cared about the sound of his own voice. As always when faced with Reginald Feye's disapproving expression, I thought about Imogen's dad, who was sweet and dorky and liked to listen to Aerosmith while reading European travel guides, because, he said, "it made him feel well-rounded." Reginald Feye didn't do any of that. Reginald Feye attended the enchanted opera only when he needed to make an appearance, read work papers and the Glimmer news web, and hadn't done an endearing or dorky thing since he was born, as far as I could tell. My mom sometimes claimed he'd been handsome and romantic when he was young, but I thought she'd been fooled by his swarthy I-eat-marathons-for-breakfast good looks and completely forgotten to check for a personality.

"You have betrayed your boss, who went out of her way to ensure there was a place for you here," he was saying. "You have failed in the primary duty of a faerie godmother, which is to grant her clients' wishes and follow their instructions exactly. You have broken an important confidentiality agreement, which shows a deplorable lack of character. You were raised better than that, Olivia Feye."

_Obviously not,_ I thought, but I would never dare say it out loud. I zipped up my energy tight to keep any of my emotions from leaking through to him. It was one faerie skill I had perfected early out of necessity. Emotions were nothing but weapons to him.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he demanded.

I said exactly what I was supposed to say. It was easier than the truth. "I made a mistake," I said. "I take full responsibility. I'm sorry."

He scoffed, like he didn't believe me. His eyes were the same hazel as mine, but I didn't think mine ever looked as cold and annoyed as his did now. "And your client? How do you propose to undo that damage?"

"I don't," I said.

This surprised him. His lips tightened together and he looked down at me, making me feel like I was three years old and no taller than his knee. "No suggestions? You don't think a memory glamour might be appropriate just now?" He spoke like I was stupid, like he was feeding the idea to me and trying to let me think I'd come up with it all by myself.

But damn it, I'd felt good this morning. I'd felt good last night. I'd felt good every time I'd done something I wasn't supposed to do, and didn't that count for something? Maybe it only meant that I should do whatever felt worst, because that was always sure to be the right thing.

But that couldn't be right. I couldn't picture Queen Amani saying any such thing. She'd offered me her job and then said it was my choice. That must mean I was equipped to make choices. I'd known that this morning when I'd walked through the doors. I'd forgotten it when Lorinda had started shouting in my face, but I wasn't about to do that twice in a row.

Reginald Feye wasn't important enough to make me forget that.

I met his eyes and sat up straight. "I don't propose to undo that damage," I said. "I made a choice. I'll accept responsibility for my actions, but I'm not taking it back."

My voice was much clearer than I'd hoped, and it gave me courage. I knew I'd regret this later, but it was like Imogen had said last night: Sometimes, you just had to let yourself feel good.

Dad stared at me. His handsome face was totally blank. I hadn't talked back to him like this in a long time. Maybe ever, I realized, scanning my memory. Aside from tantrums I'd thrown when I was little and didn't know better, I couldn't remember a time I'd said _no_ to his face.

It felt amazing.

"Excuse me?" he said.

I sat up straighter. "Lorinda has already made it clear that I probably won't keep this job. That sucks, but I deserve it. But I told my client what I did because she has a right to know."

"A right to know?" he repeated, again like I was the biggest idiot he'd ever met. "Your client, who was raised as a Humdrum, has a right to know about the work her father commissioned her faerie godmother to do on her behalf?"

"Looks like I'm not the only one who broke confidentiality," I said. I folded my arms across my chest. "You're not supposed to know that."

I stared at him, just like he was staring at me. I felt the storm clouds gather around him. "I am a member of the Grand Council of Magical Beings," he said, his voice gathering electricity and getting louder with every word. "Do not question my authority!"

I raised my eyebrows, realizing a second too late this was the exact expression my mom always had when she and my dad were fighting and she was ten kinds of fed up with him. I had nothing more to say, so I stared, waiting for whatever was next. He could bluster and storm all he wanted, but what was he going to do to me? Get me fired? Already done. The worst that could happen, I realized, was that he'd force me into another job like this one, and that would pay for college, too.

"You owe me an apology, young lady," he said. "I did not raise you to behave like this." When I still didn't talk, he barked, "Well? Are you going to apologize?"

The pause drew out while I thought. Finally, I spoke. "No," I said.

I had never spoken to him like this. No one ever spoke to him like this, as far as I knew, except for my mom, and sometimes they wouldn't speak for weeks afterward. He drew himself up to his full height, and his faerie gifts took over.

The air crackled audibly around him, and his features darkened as though he'd stepped into a shadow. "I am ashamed of you," he hissed. "You are disrespectful, a failure as a faerie godmother, and a disgrace to the Feye family name. I am embarrassed to call you my daughter!"

He'd said all he could possibly say. He glared down at me, while I stared back and felt my breath coming hot and sharp in and out of my nose. When the crackling around him had grown loud enough to be heard everywhere in the office, he snapped his fingers and disappeared with a furious clap of thunder.

The air where he had been standing swirled and whistled, blowing my hair hot and cold around my ears. When it subsided, I was alone in a cubicle full of scattered papers and heavy silence. My privacy glamour was gone.

A few minutes later, after I'd gathered the papers back up, I heard clicking footsteps outside. Lorinda's voice interrupted me. "Olivia," she said cautiously. I looked up, keeping my face perfectly calm. I raised an eyebrow, not trusting myself to speak. Her anger had subsided, and her face was drawn together in concern. "Are you okay?" she said.

I swallowed and gave her a curt nod. "I'm fine."

She rolled her lips together as if she'd just put on lip balm, and then, very softly, she said, "I'm sorry I was rough on you. What you did wasn't okay, but you know that. Let's just try to make the best of it now, all right?"

I didn't know what to do with her sympathy. But I forced a smile. "Thanks," I said, and knew I'd probably mean it later after my heartbeat had slowed and I'd stopped hearing my dad's voice repeating _I__'__m embarrassed to call you my daughter_ over and over in my head. "I appreciate it. I'm sorry. It just didn't feel right to keep something like that from her."

She shrugged one padded shoulder and admitted, "I get the same feeling sometimes about different things. We just have to remember, it's—"

"Not our job to judge," I finished with her. I sighed. "I know." I didn't add that it was wrong, that she and Tabitha both had it all backwards. How could I explain?

She tapped the door frame of my cubicle, obviously not sure where to go from here. I held up a stack of papers. "I'd better get back to this," I said.

"Right, you do that," she said. She gave me a little smile. "I guess there's no way to ruin the case now. You just make sure it closes and we'll be all right. I can't give third chances."

_Ironic,_ I thought. _I thought fairy tales always came in threes._ But of course, my life wasn't a fairy tale.


	17. Chapter 17

It was the first really nice weekend of spring, and the Saturday Market was crowded with people eager to enjoy the sunshine. We passed a guy standing on a yoga ball, juggling brightly colored Easter eggs. A raven sat perched on his top hat, looking down at the eggs with contempt.

"What about him?" Elle asked.

I looked over my glasses. A pale gold haze floated around him. "Faerie," I said in surprise. "Huh. Would have guessed wizard."

"How can you be sure?" she said.

"It's of my gifts," I said. "I can see magic."

"Is that why you're always looking over your glasses?" she said. "It makes you look like Mother Goose."

Imogen skipped ahead, then whirled around and exclaimed, "The mirror stall is back!" She raced on ahead to a booth with white wire grille walls hung with mirrors. Their frames were cobbled together out of everything from driftwood to seashell-studded clay to mosaics of stained glass and mirrors.

"Magic mirrors?" Elle said, looking sideways at me. They looked more like something out of a gift shop on the coast than a fairy tale. But I nodded and led the way over to the booth.

I positioned her in front of one with a frame of crocheted red thread. "Who do you want to see?" I said.

"Um," she said, pursing her lips while she thought. "Kyle."

"Show her Kyle," I ordered the mirror. The surface rippled like water in a pond, then cleared to reveal Kyle sitting on a carpeted floor playing cards with another older boy who had his same sandy hair. Kyle set his hand on the carpet, and the other guy threw down his cards and pumped his hands in the air.

Elle gaped at the mirror. "Oh my God," she breathed.

"That his brother?" I said, squinting at the older guy.

"Yeah," she said. "They play poker to decide who gets the car and who has to weed the garden that weekend and stuff. They're dorks."

"Olivia, look!" Imogen said, and grabbed my arm to show me a pretty mirror edged in silver wire worked with beads. "It changes your appearance!" she said, positioning me in front of it. I stared out from the mirror, but with straight bottle-blond hair with hot pink tips. "What a great way to come up with glamour ideas." She pushed her face in against mine, a dark-skinned version of her pressing in against Blond Olivia. "This is better than that makeover Barbie you had when we were kids," she said.

It should be. One of Imogen's older sisters—I couldn't remember which one—had enchanted the life-size Barbie head to spit out angry frogs whenever we brushed her hair. I'd been scared of frogs for a year.

We moved along the rows of white tents. The Glimmering shops were tucked here and there between Humdrum ones, camouflaged so perfectly you'd never realize what they were. A booth selling sugared almonds was being run by two witches, who probably had potion-candied almonds under the table. Another booth selling essential oils had a tiny rack in the back that was loaded with magical blends laced with fairy dust. A faint glow of magic rose off some of the soaps in a goat's milk soap shop, and when I asked the woman sitting in the back with her chihuahua what they were for, she promised that one would remove pimples, another would give me a rosy glow, and a few more would make me more attractive to the opposite sex. Imogen eyed these last ones with interest, but we moved on without buying anything.

Elle stopped in front of a booth near the end of a row. "This is where my mom used to be," she said. She stepped inside. The white tent was full of jewelry made out of seashells and rough-cut crystals. I picked up a silver necklace hung with a piece of rose quartz and examined it. The necklace was beautifully made, with a faint warm residue of a charm emanating off it.

"These probably aren't too different than the charms your mom used to sell," I said.

"My mom sold glass paperweights and ornaments and stuff," Elle said.

"Same difference," I said. "It's all small stuff that's been enchanted to help you or your space. Like this." I held up the rose quartz necklace. "This has a love spell. It'll help you attract new relationships and grow closer to family and friends."

She turned back to the jewelry with renewed interest. "What about this one?" she said, holding up a piece of agate threaded through with green deposits that looked like moss.

I took it from her and held it in my palm, waiting for the impression to arrive. "This one helps with overcoming addictions, I think," I said.

"And what about this one?"

"I think for hope," I said, holding the blue tourmaline in my palm. "And protection. And serenity."

"Geez, multi-task much?" Imogen said, taking the stone from me and giving it a critical look. She set it down and picked up a necklace with a large brownish stone dangling from the gold chain. "This is more my style."

It was a complicated stone with a surface that looked like silt sand pressed deep with pretty spiraling seashells. The card in front of its pedestal said "turritella agate" in swirling script. Imogen turned it over in her hand, reading the energy off it. She was better at this than I was.

"It's a protective stone. Lots of natural defenses against spells." She flipped it over and examined its lacy gold setting. "I could have used something like this three years ago when Maia was trying to enchant me every other day. She wouldn't have stood a chance against this thing."

"Maia?" Elle said.

"My sister," Imogen said. "She's about to marry a bird." She rolled her eyes and didn't bother to explain. "But that's just the tone's energy. The actual charm on it is for success in business, and making change happen quickly. Hey, Elle, this might be right up your alley." She held the necklace out to Elle.

I reached up to try to grab it. "I don't think that's a good—" I said, but Elle already had it in her hand and was examining it.

"Think this could help Pumpkin Spice?" she said.

"It's really not a good idea to use charms until you know what you're doing."

She looked around. Humdrums were milling around everywhere. "Can't be that bad," she said.

"Humdrums aren't going to be interested in these," I said. "You probably can't tell because your mom was Glim, but all the charmed necklaces have a Humdrum repellent put on them. The vendor will remove them when a Glim buys one. It's basic ethics."

"And the law, if your dad has anything to do with it," Imogen said, picking up a pair of teardrop opal earrings. She held the package up next to her ear in front of a little mirror the vendor had hung on the stall wall, entirely missing my _Shut up_ look.

Elle forgot about the necklace for a moment and said, "What does your dad have to do with it?"

"He's kind of a big deal," I said. I couldn't think of much I'd rather not talk about than Reginald Feye. I tried to casually take the necklace from her, but she snatched it away and held it up to look at it some more.

"I like this," she said. She caught the vendor's eye. "I'll take it," she said, then added, smiling like she was in on the secret, "And could you do something about that repellent?" The vendor, a leathery older man wearing a brown bowler hat with a speckled hen's feather sticking up, winked at her and nodded. She reached into her purse for cash while he packaged up the necklace, muttering to remove the spell as he went. He looked surprised when she handed him dollar bills instead of copper or nickel coins, but quickly covered the surprise with a smile and bowed us from the stall.

Elle immediately dug the necklace out of its pretty white box and put it on. I had to admit, it looked nice with her pale yellow sundress, but I wished she'd take it off. People who hadn't grown up with magic were never ready to handle how strong these charms could be, and I just had a bad feeling about Elle wearing something that would make her business succeed at lightning speed. I couldn't tell why I felt nervous—wasn't early success a good thing?—but the feeling didn't go away.

We stopped at a food cart set up by the river. Imogen bought us all greasy packets of bite-sized fried dough covered in cinnamon sugar. We wandered through the next aisle of stalls while we nibbled on them, Elle occasionally reaching up to touch her heavy stone. I was busy comparing a series of herb seedlings, that seemed to be cowering a little in the sunny but chill spring air, when I heard her draw in her breath.

Tyler Breckenridge was walking down the aisle between the booths. "I didn't see him as a Saturday Market kind of guy," I said, mostly to Imogen, since Elle was looking a little too preoccupied to listen.

Imogen eyed him up and down. "Definitely getting more of an outlet mall vibe," she said. She managed to make it sound dismissive, even though she herself had never passed by a mall of any kind without at least lingering a few seconds in front of the window displays.

"What is he doing here?" Elle hissed.

I tried to sound reassuring. "He probably hasn't even seen us." I realized what an idiot I sounded like a second later. He clearly had seen us. He was headed straight for Elle, which was odd, since the same pretty blond girl as before was on his arm and simpering at him like he was some kind of celebrity.

He stopped in front of the plants booth. His gaze was right on Elle, a little too intense and unblinking to be anything but weird.

"Hey, Tyler!" I said brightly, trying to take the edge off the situation. It didn't work.

He didn't look at me. "Hi, Elle," he said, lingering on her name. How are you?"

She looked at him like he'd just stepped in something smelly. "I'm good, I guess," she said. She didn't return the inquiry, but that didn't stop him from leaning in toward her.

"It's great to see you," he said.

The girl on his arm pressed her lips together and tensed her forehead into fine lines as if to say it really wasn't. She eyed Elle slowly up and down, slowly enough that it was impossible to miss. Elle frowned at her and folded her arms tight across her chest. When she didn't look like she was going to say anything, Tyler said, "I wish we could have talked the other day. That was great coffee, by the way."

Elle stepped sideways, just enough to nudge me with her arm. "Did you do this?" she muttered in a dark undertone. "Is this the spell?"

"I'm so sorry," I said. I put a hand on the back of my neck and massaged, which did absolutely nothing to get rid of the tension filling the small space. At least Imogen was enjoying herself. She was standing to one side, watching us and eating her fried dough like it was popcorn at the movies.

"Get rid of it," Elle said.

"I can't," I said. I smiled at Tyler and the girl on his arm. He gave me a dopey smile back, while she pulled her head back and raised an eyebrow like I'd somehow disgusted her.

I pulled Elle's arm and turned her toward me so we could talk without being quite as overhead. "It's time-sensitive," I said, the apology in my voice. "I had to get a crap load of extra permission to even do it, so I made a heavy-duty spell that would last at least through prom." Which, I realized, may not be a bad thing. I'd almost given up hope that this would work out, despite Lorinda's warnings. All she'd done was give me an extra month before I'd get fired. But if Tyler wouldn't even be capable of giving up on Elle, who's to say I had to give up on them both? "We're just going to have to live with it until it wears off," I finished.

"I don't want to live with that," she said.

"There's literally nothing I can do about it," I said. I'd put way too much energy in it to be able to turn the thing around now. I couldn't imagine Lorinda signing a paper in a million years that would give me permission to get a faerie with a little more magical oomph to wipe the spell for me. "Just try to live with it, okay?"

She frowned at me in what I was coming to recognize as Elle's classic disapproval face. "Not cool," she said. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn't dare glance at it while she was looking at me like that.

"Oh, come on," Imogen said, stepping over to join the conversation. "Just drag him around for a month or two and get him to circulate petitions for your weird coffee shop agenda."

I thought Elle would get offended. Instead, she relaxed completely. "Good point," she said. "May as well make the best of the situation. As long as I'm immune to the spell, right?" she added, snapping her head over to me.

"I didn't cast it on you," I said.

"And it's not going to wear off on you," Imogen said. "Not with that necklace on."

Elle considered this a moment, then tapped her hand against her arm a few times before letting her arms fall uncrossed down to her sides. "Okay," she said.

A friendly smile turned on like a light. "Hi," she said to Tyler, whose entire face lit up. "Good to see you."

The plants on the shelf next to my head waved in the faint breeze that drifted through the aisle between the stalls. I turned to a tiny pepper seedling, wishing I could talk to it. I felt like I almost could with plants, sometimes. If I got quiet and calm enough, somehow I just knew what they wanted and needed. Right now, though, I was the furthest thing from quiet and calm that I could imagine. I couldn't tell if that was because I was horrified at this turn of events or thrilled. Somehow, I thought it might be both.

By the time I'd managed to filter my way through my feelings—unnerved that Elle was actually going for it, relieved that I might actually have a shot at pulling this case off, and distantly lovestruck in a way I recognized as belonging to Tyler—Elle had his number programmed into her phone and had said she "might stop by" his track practice tomorrow.

I caught Imogen's eye and mouthed, _He runs track?_ She nodded and mouthed something back that I couldn't understand. I sidled over to her. "It keeps him in shape for basketball," she said. "Apparently."

Finally, about thirty long seconds after it was clear the conversation was over, Tyler was dragged away by the blond girl, whose name I still hadn't caught. He glanced back over his shoulder every few seconds at Elle. The blank, infatuated look made him look even more like a catalog model than usual.

Elle's skin glowed, but it didn't look like embarrassment was involved. She didn't cringe or try to defend what had just happened. Instead, she slipped her phone back in the pocket of her yellow sundress and said, "Well. That was interesting."

"I'll say," Imogen said. She flashed her eyebrows up and then turned around, leading the way to the next booth that had caught her interest. She stepped inside for no more than a few seconds, then came back out and announced, "I think we've seen everything. Let's go to the Tributary."

"What's that?" Elle asked. Imogen started explaining, and I tuned out, too busy thinking about my case and whether it was every going to make sense.

It probably wasn't, I realized as we walked along the waterfront by the river. The breeze blowing up from the water was cold, almost too cold to let the sunlight feel nice. A barefoot guy in ragged cutoff jeans sat on a bench, playing a banjo and singing at the top of his lungs. He looked like he'd never been anywhere but that bench and sounded like he'd never done anything but play that music.

The music was good. I glanced over my glasses. He was a Humdrum. This guy right here was proof, I thought, that my dad didn't have it right about the Humdrums. He said they were talentless plebeians, mostly harmless but inferior. But this guy knew what he was doing. He understood music like my dad understood how to use his magic to influence people. And which skill was better? If I could vote, I'd cast mine with the guy whose gift wasn't likely to make anyone do things they didn't want to do or think they believed things they didn't actually believe.

I pulled my jacket tighter around me and lagged along behind Imogen and Elle, pulling my phone out of my pocket as I went. The little purple bubble of text made my stomach flutter.

_Lucas: Hey. Do you have any idea what we__'__re supposed to know about the Louisiana Purchase? My notes make no sense,_

My finger flew over the screen.

_Olivia: You want to meet up? Way too much to explain over text._

The answer was instant.

_Lucas: Yes. You are the greatest._

_Olivia: And you apparently don__'__t know what that word means. :-P_

I couldn't get my stupid smile off my face. I was worse than Tyler.

_Lucas: Tomorrow work?_ _Like evening? I__'__ll buy you dinner if you help me with the chi square thing again too._

Dinner was almost a date. Not quite, because he was basically paying me in food in exchange for tutoring, and he had a girlfriend. But it was still more like a date than meeting in a classroom after school was. I forced myself to put the phone in my pocket so I wouldn't look too eager, then reminded myself that I was an empowered woman who didn't play those kinds of games and pulled it back out. We arranged to met at six.

We reached the open space where the Tributary sat. The Humdrums knew it as Skidmore Fountain, but we knew it as one of the Oracle's dozens of satellite locations all through Portland. She didn't personally live in any of the Tributaries, but her water sprites did, and they could get messages to her and give gifts on her behalf. I could only remember a handful of times when Imogen had passed by a Tributary without stopping. She always made time, even if it was just to splash some enchanted water on her face.

I cautioned Elle to stand back. Despite Imogen's explanation, it was one thing to hear about a Tributary and quite another to see one in action.

Imogen stepped up to the fountain, which fell from what looked like a bird bath atop tall pillar into an octagonal pond. One either side of the central pillar, sculptures of a women in ancient Greek clothing held up the bird bath. The women seemed a little sad when they were still like this. The angle of their arms looked uncomfortable, and their faces were downcast and solemn.

Imogen stepped to the edge of the fountain and leaned against it, the edge of the octagon pond digging into her knees. She threw a gold coin into the water. "I seek a gift of water," she said.

I felt Elle freeze next to me as the sculpture directly in front of Imogen softened and melted into life. Her rigid black skin grew supple and her clothing blew gently in the breeze. She lifted her face. "For what purpose?" Her voice was as bubbling and elusive as the water raining down from above her face, water which was suddenly full of glimmering blue and white sparkles.

Imogen was much more confident with the Tributaries than most people. Elle looked stunned, but Imogen had done this a million times, and she talked to the statue like they were old friends. "I want to use some in a beauty salve," she said. "I'm glamouring beeswax and oils and I think the Oracle's water will help."

The statue bowed its head. "The Oracle's blessing helps all," she said. "The Oracle's blessing helps always." Her black eyes flashed on the _always,_ almost as if she was delivering a warning.

"I know," Imogen said cheerfully.

"Take what you will," the statue said, and then she froze again, growing still and matte as though she'd never moved at all. Imogen pulled a glass mason jar out of her purse and scooped water from the fountain. She screwed the lid on the jar, said, "Thanks!" to the silent Tributary, and then waved us over.

Elle seemed even more impressed with this than she had been by my magic the other night at Gilt. "That's amazing!" she gushed when we were across the street and headed back to Imogen's car. She twisted her head to look back at the fountain, which sat calm and quiet behind us as though nothing exciting had ever happened there. "How did no one notice? There was a guy standing next to you and he literally didn't notice what was going on."

"Oh, he couldn't see it," Imogen said. We squished together single-file to let a man pass with his four over-excited dogs on leashes in front of him. "The Tributary's got a boundary around it. As long as you're a Glimmer and standing inside, no Humdrum will ever see what you're doing or that the statues are moving. They won't really be able to look at it straight-on. Even if they're there to take pictures of whatever, they'll just get interested in other things for a little while."

Elle skipped ahead of us, then spun to walk backward. It was a dangerous predicament on this sidewalk, what with all the pedestrians and tables set outside restaurants, even though it was too chilly to want to sit in the buildings' shade for long. But she managed it all right, somehow seeming to know exactly when to move aside so someone could move past her. "Your world is amazing!" she said. "Absolutely amazing! I can't believe I never knew about it before."

"You're still not supposed to know about it," I said.

Her whole face changed when she smiled. Suddenly she had dimples and teeth all over the place. "I know," she said. "And you're the best faerie godmother in the whole world for telling me about it. Seriously. I can't wait to learn everything else I can!" She turned back around to walk forward, and I saw a hand fly up and clutch the stone on her necklace. "I can't wait to learn everything about it. There's no way Pumpkin Spice can fail with your world on my side." She looked behind her shoulder to smile at me. I smiled back, suddenly aware of the tug-of-war in my emotions again. Happy? Excited? Concerned? Disturbed? I honestly couldn't tell.


	18. Chapter 18

Imogen sat down with a thud and turned to me, gripping her desk with both hands. Her normally animated face was as intense as I'd seen it a while. Once she had me pinned down with her gaze, she took a deep breath.

"What. The hell. Happened."

I buried my head in my hands. "I have no idea."

I'd never seen a situation turn so sour so fast. If anyone needed more evidence that I was absolutely, positively, completely not cut out for this job, this was Exhibit A.

"I knew she shouldn't have bought the necklace," I said.

"I don't think it's the necklace," Imogen said. "I think it's that love spell."

And there was Exhibit B.

Mr. Duncan came into the room and set his coffee down with a sigh. He looked as tired as I was overwhelmed and probably wouldn't even notice if we kept talking, but I lowered my voice anyway. "I know," I said. "That was the stupidest idea I think I've ever had."

Imogen was nice enough to not start listing all the stupid ideas I'd ever had, even though she'd been there for most of them. Instead she handed me a stick of gum. I took off the shiny silver wrapper and popped it in my mouth. The taste was cinnamon with a little hint of something else. "Infused with mead simmered under a full moon," she said. "One of my mom's witch friends makes it. Supposed to be good for stress."

"Thanks," I said. My heart vibrated with tension.

I had created a monster. Worse than that, I had created a monster that I couldn't actually pin down as being anything but a normal high school girl.

Elle hadn't done anything wrong. She seemed happy. She ate lunch with Tyler and hung around with him after school. She'd convinced him to come to Pumpkin Spice almost every day and bring his friends. I should have been thrilled. But somehow, for some reason, every time I saw them together, I felt sick.

"Tyler cornered me this morning and tried to get me to sign one of Elle's petitions," I said. "Apparently her dad is 'representative of the failing moral backbone of our great city.'"

"Elle cornered me this morning," Imogen said. "She told me that my hair looks 'just a little washed out' and could use a 'pop of color.' When the hell did she become such an expert?"

My stress was punctured just for a moment by the giggle that bubbled out of my throat. "Are you just mad because she criticized your hair?"

"Of course I'm mad!" Imogen said. Mr. Duncan looked up at us and she mouthed _Sorry_ and said, in a lower voice, "It's weird. She's been _weird_ the last couple of weeks. I can't even pin it down. She's just… it's not right, you know?"

I pursed my lips and pulled my pencil out of my hair, where it had been wedged next to my wand. "It could be the manipulating people," I said.

Elle rolled her eyes at me. "Nah," she said sarcastically, waving me off.

"I should be happy but I can't stop cringing," I said.

Imogen nodded, pointing her pink gel pen at me. "It's like everything good about magic gone horribly, horribly wrong," she said. "But I can't even tell what's so gross about it. It's nothing you godmothers don't do all the time."

"Except the actual honest-to-God love spell. Nothing under a love spell is ever right," I said. "Have you ever heard of a love spell or potion not backfiring somehow? Isn't the moral of every Story always 'don't control people's hearts because it always ends badly'?"

"You did get permission for it," Imogen said.

She was right. I had. I'd thought it out, written a proposal, submitted the paperwork, and gotten it signed. But that was the weird part: my higher-ups had signed it. If I should have known better, they _definitely_ should have known better. The more involved I got, the more I had the uncomfortable niggling feeling that godmothering was an icky, corrupt business from the get-go.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be among the noblest of all professions. We'd been plying this trade for thousands of years and making Stories happen that could never have come true without our help. And the Oracle approved every case before it landed on our desks, and showered us in gold and her approval afterward. The Oracle knew everything. She was as wise and all-knowing as the Faerie Queen. She could never let a Story happen that shouldn't.

And yet, every time I saw Elle with Tyler, I got a twisting feeling in my gut that screamed it was wrong for her to be with him, wrong for him to be drugged to be in love with her, and wrong for me to be meddling in their lives at all.

I wished for a brief second that I could talk to Queen Amani. Did she know anything about godmothering?Was she really as wise as everyone painted her out to be? Was the Oracle as wise as everyone said? But I brushed the thoughts away as soon as they came. Questioning either of them was so outrageous and arrogant it could barely form as a complete idea in my head. And I dreaded the idea of running into Amani again. I didn't want to give her false hope that she'd change her mind.

_False hope_, I thought. Like I was so special that the Faerie Queen herself was lying awake nights just longing for me, glorious me, to be her successor! I scoffed and pulled my homework out of the front pocket of my green US History binder.

"What was that?" Imogen said, giving me a look, which was fair seeing as how I sounded like I'd just choked.

"Nothing," I said. "Just thinking about all this stupidness with Elle."

She went back to her homework, pressing the end of her pen up against her lips. "I think she bought some more spells, by the way," she said. "More charms. She's got a bracelet that definitely has some stuff going on with it."

A few hours later, I jogged up alongside Elle as she walked down the hall toward the doors that led to the parking lot. It was a typically rainy spring day, and the sky outside the windowed doors was heavy and soft, like folds of gray velvet.

She was wearing makeup, which was a little odd for her. And she had earrings on, tiny dangling beads made out of tiger's eye. The beauty spell coming off of them was so strong it made my eyes water.

"How's it going?" I said.

She'd traded in her usual t-shirt and jeans for a short coral belted skirt and a loose beige tank top that looked like something my mom might have worn in the eighties. A raindrop landed on her bare shoulder and she waved her hand at me to follow her.

"I'm good," she said. She turned for a second to look at me. Her brown eyes were sparkly, almost too sparkly. "Sorry I've been crappy about returning your texts!" she said.

She bowed her head as the rain started coming down. We reached a dark blue Honda and she unlocked the doors and gestured at me to climb in.

"Where'd you get the car?" I said, looking around at the interior. It was new, maybe from the last few years. "I thought you didn't believe in driving."

"It's Mallory's," she said, slinging her purse over her shoulder and into the back seat. "I talked her into letting me use it today." She winked at me and flashed a beaded carnelian bracelet. It only took me a second to figure out what the spell was coming off the irregular rust-colored beads.

"Influence," I said.

"Yep!" Elle said, her tone much brighter than I approved of. "The earrings are for beauty and seduction, and you recognize the necklace." She lifted the heavy brown stone hanging down the front of her shirt. "This has changed my life."

"I'll bet," I said.

I was light-headed just being around that many spells. No Glimmer in their right mind would wear that many at a time, at least not unless they were in the middle of performing a spell or ritual. My mom never wore more than her little enchanted ring and _maybe_ a pair of earrings, and she was a pretty powerful faerie, even if she never bothered to use any of that power.

But Elle didn't look sick or dizzy. She looked higher than a kite.

"Absolutely amazing," she said. "I can't believe I've gone my whole life not being part of your world!"

"You've definitely missed out on some stuff," I said. _Like training on responsible spell use,_ I added silently, remembering the awkward "Spell Responsibly!" skits Imogen and I were always confronted with at faerie summer camp. They had been super uncomfortable to sit through, but at least they'd helped me figure out how not to be an idiot. "Sometimes it's dangerous to mix volatile charms," I said carefully.

Elle cut me off, laughing. "That's what the guy at the Saturday Market said when I got all these," she said. "Seriously, you'd think he'd be trying to sell me more, not less."

"Maybe he's a responsible business owner," I said. Hadn't that been Elle's goal, like, a week ago?

She shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "But don't worry about me. I'm not getting bad side effects or anything. The last couple weeks have been amazing!" She turned to me, twisting her torso in the seat and propping her elbow up against the headrest. She laced her fingers through her hair and propped her head against her hand, looking at me with a delighted expression. "Tyler is crazy about me. Absolutely crazy. Whatever that spell was you threw at him, it worked. Great job."

It felt odd to meet her look of enthusiasm with solemn concern, but I couldn't muster up a lie. "I thought you didn't want it to work," I said. Rain splattered heavy against the windshield and drizzled down in glassy rivulets.

"I didn't," she said. "But I should have known my faerie godmother would know better than me about that kind of stuff."

I felt a rush of satisfaction and pride come rushing into my blood, then stopped it short with a slight wave of my fingers. It wasn't real. It had shot straight out of Elle's bracelet and into my energy field.

Her influence wasn't going to work on me. I was a faerie, and a Feye on top of it. I may not always like my dad, but at least he had taught me the first rule of being a Feye in a magical world: We didn't fall for that nonsense. Letting ourselves be manipulated meant letting the integrity of the Council fall by the wayside, and that could never be allowed to happen. Normally I resented his self-important blustering. Just now, though, I was grateful.

Elle didn't seem to notice she'd tried to enchant me. She was busy bubbling over with how great her life was. "Tyler's really not that bad," she was saying. "I judged him way too harshly to begin with. I mean, he's probably not the guy I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, but he treats me really well, and, more importantly, he's got a lot of influence. Imogen was right. I can use him and his friends to circulate petitions, have sit-ins, buy a ton of the totally ethical coffee I just started selling without telling my dad and then boycotting the rest. I've been tracking the total number of people who buy the good stuff and who buy the crap. At the end of the month, I'm going to show him the numbers. Tyler has almost single-handedly guaranteed that they're going to be freaking amazing."

"Yeah, Elle, I don't know how ethical that is," I said, but she wasn't listening. She bounced in her seat like I'd expect from chihuahua who'd just chugged a pot of coffee. "And anyway, maybe my dad was at least right about one thing. It's kind of cool to have friends, especially rich, popular friends. I think I only hate rich, popular people because I'm jealous, you know? That's what Tyler said when I told him I used to not like him."

Apparently even a love spell wasn't quite enough to check his particular privilege.

"Makes sense, right?" she said. "Anyway, it's nice to just be around someone like that, you know? He makes me feel special, like I'm important or something. No one ever makes me feel important. Well, except for Kyle, but Kyle has no social life so it's not surprising I'm the most important person in his world. I think Tyler's going to ask me to prom. I hope he's going to ask me to prom. We've only got like a month left. Well, more like two months. It's at the end of May. Is it weird that he hasn't asked me yet? I think it's kind of weird. He _has_ to ask me, right? I mean, with your spell and all this?" She waved her wrist wildly around.

I caught her wrist before she knocked my glasses off and gently lowered it to her lap. "I'm sure he will," I said. "Maybe you're using so many charms it's confusing him."

"Yeah, right," she said, and laughed like I'd just made the funniest joke ever. "Like that's possible. I've turned myself into his total dream girl. These earrings make me beautiful. So does this makeup. It's got fairy dust in it."

That explained the faint glow on her skin. Even though her beauty charm probably wouldn't work on me like it would on a Humdrum, she did look pretty, I noticed. Really pretty, kind someone had gone overboard on the Photoshop. If she could have seen herself from two weeks ago, she'd have been horrified.

"That's a lot of magic," I said. That sentence made "understatement" feel like an understatement.

"That's the point," she said. "I didn't have a chance with a guy like Tyler before. Do you know what he said to me last year?"

"He told everyone you were a lesbian," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "But first, he told me that I was an ugly freak and that he'd never be seen dead with a girl like me."

I felt my face pull into an look of disgust. I'd pinned him down as dull and entitled, not cruel.

"But it wasn't him," she went on. "He told that girl that's always hanging out with him, that blond bitch that thinks she's his girlfriend? He told me that she made him say that, because she'd caught him staring at me and didn't want me as competition. And last year, he was too much of a pansy to stand up to her. But now, with all this magic helping me? He has to be brave. He _has_ to stand up to her and tell her he likes me more. But he still hasn't asked me to prom. If he asks her to prom instead I'm going to kill him."

The crazy gleam in her eye made me think she just might.

This was how it was supposed to be, wasn't it? She was supposed to be in love with Tyler, and he was supposed to be in love with her and take her to the big party where she'd feel like a princess. I told myself not to interfere. I told myself to leave her alone and be as excited as she wanted about Tyler, because letting her be giddy over him was what I was there for.

Then I told myself not to let my job interfere with the demands of reality, because the reality was that if she kept playing with magic like this, she was going to burn up like a shooting star. I had to figure out how to get these spells off of her, or at least how to make it so she could handle the side effects without coming off like quite so much of a speed addict.

"He's probably just planning a big thing where he asks me in front of everyone," she said. Her voice was louder than it should have been, and her eyes were too big on her face.

"I thought you didn't even want to go to prom," I said. My mind whirred. How could I get those stones off of her? "I thought you were going to NebulaCon with Kyle."

She waved a hand, again almost hitting my glasses. "He'll forgive me," she said. "There's always next year."

"Hey," I said, like I'd just noticed something. "Your necklace is about to fall out of its casing. It keeps wiggling like it's coming loose."

A panicked hand flew to the brown agate on her necklace. She squeezed it, like somehow she'd be able to squish it back together if she pressed hard enough. I held out a hand. "Let me see it," I said. "I know a spell that will make sure it doesn't fall out." It probably had a spell like that on it already, but Elle didn't need to know that. With a grateful sigh, she lifted the necklace over her head and pushed it into my hand.

I held it in my palm, then raised it dramatically, while I focused all my scrambling thoughts into the most slap-dash spell I'd come up with in a while. When the magic was ready, glowing like gold heat in the palm of my other hand, I waved the spell around the necklace three times. The first two times, I pressed the gold heat into the necklace. It wasn't a spell for gluing the thing back together again. It was a spell made out of earth and rocks and other solid things, a spell that would shield her just a little bit from the effects of the others. If I did it right, this would play nicely with the charm already embedded in the stone; one would protect her from outside spells, and the other would protect her from the side effects of the ones she meant to inflict on everyone else. I only wished I could do more. The third time I waved my hand around the necklace, I sent down a shower of white sparks, just for show.

I handed it back to Elle, whose eyes were as wide as coat buttons. "Wow," she said, her face as expansive and lit-up as if it were Christmas. "That's amazing. I'm so glad you're my faerie godmother."

"Me too," I said, and I thought I deserved a medal for how little sarcasm made it from my heart and into my voice.


	19. Chapter 19

Pumpkin Spice buzzed with conversation. Tyler had taken up residence on one of the couches, surrounded by a posse of the kind of people who usually didn't acknowledge me when I passed them in the halls. He didn't join in on the conversation going on around him. Instead, he stared dreamily toward the counter, where Elle was blowing kisses to him in between making lattes. He'd glanced at me when I walked in, said, "Hi! Elle's friend!" and then gone back to staring.

It occurred to me in that moment that I wasn't just screwing with Elle's life. I was screwing with his, too. What if he had other stuff he needed to be focusing on during his last two months of high school? What if he and the blond girl who still kept finding ways to sit next to him was the one he was supposed to be with, and he was completely ignoring her except to tell her how spectacular Elle was. What if I was breaking her heart?

I'd come to Pumpkin Spice in the hopes of discover my charm on Elle's necklace had performed even better than expected and brought her down to something approximating normal. But she giggled loudly enough to be heard from across the room and made kissing faces at Tyler. Nothing had changed.

I turned to leave, then saw Kyle sitting at the right-hand table by the window. He was buried in a giant red sweatshirt with _REDSHIRT: Because tomorrow may never come _emblazoned on the front in blocky silver lettering. He stared vaguely at the space behind me, then his face jerked into a smile and he waved me over.

I slid into the seat opposite him, slipping my purse off my shoulder and onto the floor.

"Hi," he said.

"You okay? You look kind of out of it."

He blinked several times, then looked pointedly over at Elle and then back at me. "Why is she broken?" he asked.

It was such a concise way to put it that I couldn't help laughing. No one else would have thought she was broken. Her dad was probably thrilled. But I could see it, and Kyle could see it: She wasn't herself. The cogs in her brain weren't connecting right. Something had snapped.

"She's been exposed to a lot of magic lately," I said.

"This is your fault?" he said. He looked about ready to pin all the blame on me. I deserved it.

"You see all that jewelry she's wearing?" I said. "It's all charmed, and she bought it all for herself. I tried to stop her but stopping Elle is kind of like trying to convince the sky not to rain."

He pulled a chair over from a nearby table and propped his feet up on it so that he was sitting sideways. He turned his head to look over at me. "Where would Elle get charmed jewelry?"

"Saturday Market," I said.

"Yeah," he said, "but why?"

It took me a second to realize what he was asking.

"Oh," I said. I shrugged. "Elle's a Glim."

His eyebrows furrowed down and he stared at me. Then he swung his feet off the footrest chair and spun to face me full-on. "She's a _what?_" he said.

"A Glimmer," I said. I frowned. "I thought you'd put it together. Faerie godmother and all." I waved toward myself.

"So?" he said. "The original Cinderella was human, wasn't she?"

No one knew who the original Cinderella was, and it wasn't like we godmothers just randomly picked deserving souls out of a hat. But of course, he was a magician. He didn't know how this all worked.

"Her mom was an earth witch." I'd looked it up a few days ago. Elle must have pulled in a recessive gene from a great-grandmother or something, though, because Elle definitely leaned more toward the fire spectrum. She definitely hadn't gotten that from her dad.

Kyle made a soft choking sound. I'd thrown him into shock, or at least something close. His mouth opened and shut again a few times like he was a goldfish in shock, then he said, slowly, as though just figuring out how language worked, "Elle… is… one of us?"

I wondered if I should get him a coffee before realizing he already had one on the table. "Yes," I said. "She only found out a week or two ago."

"Elle is a witch?"

"Something like that," I said. "Except _really_ not trained."

"Obviously," he said, shooting a glance over to the counter. "How is she not throwing up?"

"I threw a protection on her necklace," I said. "She's actually looking a little calmer than she was yesterday, if you'd believe that."

He leaned back in his seat, still staring at me. It would have been uncomfortable, but Kyle had already warned me he was socially awkward, so I just leaned back in my chair too and stared back.

"I don't even know what to say right now," he said, then, immediately, said, "Yes I do. Elle is _one of us._ My best friend is a Glim. Do you know how long I've lied to her about who I am? Do you have any idea how hard it is not to tell your best friend who you are?"

I raised one shoulder and shook my head. Imogen had been my best friend since we were little kids. The closest I could compare was the year I spent hanging out with Lucas, and I'd never really wanted to tell him who I was. It had been more fun pretending to be like him.

Kyle stood up, his sandy hair tousled and on end. The excited expression on his face looked worrisomely like the one on Elle's. "I'm going to go tell her," he said.

I grabbed his sleeve and tugged him back down toward his chair, which only made him sway on the spot. "Slow down there, space cadet," I ordered. Elle was in no kind of state to listen to him reveal his true self to her. I'd be impressed if she could even focus on him that long.

He tugged his sleeve back away with enough force to yank the red fabric from my grasp. "You don't understand," he said. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. "I've been friends with Elle since we were in third grade. I've never told her who I am. Never." He stared at me, like he was waiting for some kind of dramatic reaction.

I put a firm hand on the table. "She's basically high right now," I said.

Elle walked around the counter with five drinks somehow wedged between her arms. She almost skipped across the room to a table where a handful of middle-aged customers were watching her like they expected the drinks to crash to the floor at any second. She slid the mugs onto the table and they spun to each person's place like she was some kind of small-town diner waitress from a movie, then fist-pumped the air and danced back behind the counter.

Kyle watched her for a moment, a tiny frown creasing his usually open face. Then he shook his arms out and said, "Doesn't matter. I've got to tell her."

He walked off, bouncing like his shoes were attached to tennis balls.

Everyone in my life was an idiot. Everyone except for Imogen, who was a saint, even if she hadn't been quite a saint enough to agree to come here with me today. "I'm not equipped for that kind of crazy," she'd said, spinning her fingers around her temples. I knew what she meant. Even without her spectacularly developed empathetic gifts, the weird vibes coming off charm-overdosed Elle, love-drugged Tyler, and excited-puppy Kyle were enough to make me feel like a tangle of static was forming in my head.

Elle waved Kyle over, shouted, "Hey! Hand me the vanilla cream!" even though it was behind the counter and much closer to her than him, and then swirled around to grab a bottle of raspberry syrup. She almost knocked it to the ground, but caught it in one lightning movement and lifted it into the air, laughing. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she'd been injecting fair trade coffee directly into her veins.

Kyle leaned over the counter, the heels of his tennis shoes just lifting off the floor. I watched, silently cringing and hoping all at the same time. I really didn't know much about him, except that he was Elle's best friend and a Glim. But I liked him. I didn't want to see him get hurt.

Courtney came through the curtain that opened to the kitchen. She tapped Elle on the shoulder and said something I didn't catch from where I was sitting. Elle nodded, untied her apron, and leaned across the counter at Kyle. I watched her lips move: "What?"

This wasn't any good. I tugged my earlobe a few times. With each tug, the sound of their conversation grew louder, until I could hear Kyle saying, "I've been wanting to tell you the truth forever."

I almost sent a spell over to knock him out. There were a thousand better times and places for this conversation.

But I sat on my hands. I'd interfered in people's lives enough lately, and Elle's crazy energy was proof of exactly how much good it didn't do. Anyway, I wasn't supposed to throw spells all over people's lives unless I'd been hired for it. On a good day, it was horrible manners. On a bad day, they'd press charges and I'd get a Class Serpent misdemeanor and a hundred-piece gold fine.

"What truth?" Elle said. "Oh my God. Are you gay?"

The back of Kyle's neck flushed almost as bright as his sweater. Was she seriously asking that? Even I could tell he was in love with her. "No," he said.

"Then why are you so red?" she said. "You seriously look like you're about to come out to me."

Kyle twisted his hands together, then put them flat on the counter. I could feel him trying to steady himself. I bit my lip and tried to send him as much calm, strong energy as I could without actually turning it into a spell.

"I kind of am," he said. His voice trembled with excitement. I fought the urge to stop him. It wasn't my job, I reminded myself. And anyway, preventing him might actually stop a problem instead of creating one, and the last few weeks suggested that solving messes wasn't really my thing.

Elle watched him with eyes that were a little too glassy, like a drunk or tired person's might get if you told them to focus. After a long pause that made every last part of my body cringe in anticipation, Kyle gave her something to focus on. "I'm a Glimmer," he said. "Just like you."

Elle's eyebrows shot down into a furrow so quickly I wondered if they'd gotten whiplash. "Who have you been talking to?" she said. "Did you talk to Olivia? Did Olivia tell you? She's not supposed to tell anyone. At least she told me _I_ wasn't allowed to tell anyone, so she'd better not have told you because I'm going to be pissed if she lied to me."

"Olivia didn't tell me about the magical world," Kyle said, his voice still trembling a little.

"Oh, good!" Elle said. She let out a giant sigh like it had really been troubling her during the last two seconds. "I didn't think Olivia would do that. She's so nice. Olivia is nice. Do you like her? I saw you talking." She leaned in way too close. "Do you want to _date_ her?"

Courtney stood on her tiptoes to look over Elle and Kyle's heads. She looked puzzled, then poked Elle's shoulder. "Um," she said. "Could you maybe move? Because, like, I've got to work here and there are… customers." She smiled brightly to the bored-looking guy in his twenties who had just approached the counter. Elle's head snapped up. She looked at Courtney, then Kyle, then the customer, and then Courtney again in rapid succession.

"Right-o," she said, and marched out from behind the counter. She led Kyle into the back corner of the room. There was a tiny table there, but the corner looked a little cramped and no one ever seemed to sit at it.

She put her hands on Kyle's shoulders and sat him down in the chair, then sat opposite him and leaned in again, staring too hard. "Who told you?"

I could feel Kyle's nervous, delighted energy from here. He held out his hand.

I wanted to reach out and stop him. But it was too late. He turned his back to shield his hand from the rest of the cafe. When he turned back around, he held a rose. Elle's eyes were enormous and her mouth hung open in an _O._

"Did Olivia give you that?" she demanded in a whisper.

He held the flower out to her, but she eyed it like it was about to blow up. "Olivia's not the only one, you know," he said.

"Yeah, I know," Elle whispered, her voice so fast that it sounded like one long hiss of air being let out of a tire. "What I want to know is how the hell _you_ know. Where did you get that? What are you doing?" He held out the flower even more and she said, "You're freaking me out. Stop freaking me out!"

Finally, much too late, he realized that this wasn't going to be whatever grand scene he'd pictured in his head. I held my breath. He frowned and pulled the flower back, looking hurt.

"I thought you'd like it," he said quietly.

Elle folded her arms and scowled at him, more confused than angry. "Like it?" she said. "Like what? This is weird, dude."

He shrugged, defeated, but he was too far gone to back out now. He shrugged, his shoulders tiny inside the red fabric. "I'm a Glimmer," he said. "A magician."

Silence hung like bricks between them. I felt him grow more worried but hopeful by the second. And I felt Elle, too, and her emotions made my whole body brace for impact.

"You _lied_ to me?" she shouted. Her voice was so loud in my volume-enhanced corner that I winced. Half the cafe glanced over, then tried hard to pretend they weren't listening. Her voice dropped back to the hiss. "Kyle effing Dennis, you have been _lying_ to me for the last whatever many years?"

"It wasn't lying," he said. He didn't feel guilty, just nervous, but he'd jumped in too quickly and he sounded like he was trying to cover something up. "I just wasn't allowed to tell you. It's illegal to tell non-Glimmers about our world unless you're marrying one of them, and then you have to wipe their memories if they freak out and leave you for it."

Her anger was interrupted by a tiny, distracted bubble of incredulity. "Who would leave someone for that?" she said. "It's _awesome._"

"I know," Kyle said. "But some people really can't handle anyone who's different."

"You know what else some people can't handle?" Elle said, back to the whisper. Listening to her was like being on a roller coaster for my ears. "_Liars._ You _lied_ to me. That is a huge thing to lie about. Did you know about me?"

"No!" Kyle said, again too quickly.

"_Liar,_" she said again. It seemed to be the only word she could come up with for him. I cringed as I felt the word hit him.

He shielded himself from the room again, although this time it wasn't to work magic. My cheeks burned in sympathy with his.

"Elle," he said in a low voice. "I'm trying to share something important with you here. I would have told you if I could."

"But you didn't," she said. "I've told you everything about myself. You were the only person I talked to for like a _year_ after my mom died. And all that time, you were hiding the most important thing from me?"

"It's not the most important thing," Kyle said. His voice was a little stronger, and he sat up a little straighter. "Don't be stupid."

"Why the hell am I the stupid one?" she said. "I didn't lie."

"How is my ethnic identity the most important thing about me?" he demanded. "Are you seriously that racist?"

"You're white, dude," Elle said.

"Doesn't mean I don't have a heritage," Kyle said. "Geez." He was mad at her now, too. Their anger hovered at the same level. Elle's felt frantic like fireworks, but Kyle's was a slow low burn.

"I would have thought that something else about me might have been the first thing to come to mind. Like, I don't know, that I'm your best friend." He scoffed. "But that's not right, is it? They're your best friends now." He jerked a thumb toward Tyler and his crowd over on the brown sofas.

Tyler watched Elle with a look of vacant contentment while his friends gossiped and laughed around him. I saw his mouth move, and only my enhanced hearing let me pick up his muttered words: "She has a nice _ass,_ you guys."

Why did everyone I touched end up drugged and stupid?

Elle tossed her ponytail and scowled at him. "Maybe they are," she said. "At least I know they haven't been keeping things from me since I was a kid."

"You're still a kid," he said. He pushed away from the table and stood up. "And lay off the charms. You're acting like an idiot." He stalked back across the room.

I tried to think of something to say to make him feel better, but he blew past me without a glance and marched out into the rain. A moment later, he was just a red blur through the window, and a moment after that, he was gone.


	20. Chapter 20

Reflection was a bad trait in a faerie godmother. Unfortunately for all of us, I had scored high on the Introversion and Neuroticism scales during our Career Preparation class last term and nothing in my life was suggesting the test had gotten it wrong. I'd spent most of the day alone or with Imogen, and all of it thinking.

It had been hard not to think after yesterday. I couldn't tell if it was Kyle being upset or Tyler acting like a drunk Neanderthal or just the awareness that I was completely manipulating these people's lives with no good reason except that Elle's dad had said so. Everything was a tangle in my head. I'd tossed and turned over it last night and then spread worry over my bagel along with the cream cheese this morning, giving it the slightly metallic taste of anxiety that I could only explain to another faerie who'd done the same thing even though we all knew better.

_Does Kyle go to our school?_ I wrote to Imogen in the middle of study hall.

She frowned a little and wrote back, _Nope. Elle said he__'__s homeschooled._

Lots of Glimmers were. My parents had sent us to public school. My dad wasn't wild about Humdrums, but he knew as well as anyone that we had to learn to blend in. The more normal we seemed, the better we could keep our world hidden. He probably regretted that decision by now, though. It had definitely backfired, at least if the state college brochures hidden under my bed were any sign.

But a lot of Glimmers didn't bother with the "normal" world if they could help it. Glimmering homeschool co-ops stretched across Portland like a web, connecting Glim kids and making sure they carried on their cultural traditions without Humdrum interference. I would have gone crazy around that much magic all the time.

I brushed aside the cobwebby, half-formed idea of hosting an intervention with Elle and Kyle. It was a stupid thought, anyway. Elle wan't about to listen to me on anything, and even if she did come to her senses, Tyler was going to be drugged until the spell word off after prom.

My final decision before study hall ended wasn't a noble one, but it seemed like the most logical course of action: Lie low, stay out of everyone's way, and let this whole ridiculous charade run its course.

This would have been a lot easier if I hadn't run into Elle outside her locker.

I felt the tension radiating down the hallway before I saw them. She stood as part of a tight circle, with Kyle on one side and Tyler on the other. I could see Tyler's face clearly but only part of Kyle's profile. But I didn't need to see anything to know he was upset.

"Are you serious?" Kyle said. "We've been planning on working on this for two months."

"Oh, come on," Elle said. She felt annoyed, but her voice came out cheerful and flippant. The annoyed feeling was a low buzz coming off her, and it felt like the staticky feeling my brain always got after I stared at a computer or complicated textbook for too long. She was overstimulated to the max, but she hadn't even noticed anything was upsetting her.

I inched closer, pretending to look through the papers in my binder. Enough students passed us in the halls, shuffling to their next classes, that I was just another body in the crowd.

"I'm not going to _come on,_" Kyle said. Tyler was sizing him up, but Kyle ignored him. "You made a commitment to me and now you're just dropping it because this guy—" he jerked his thumb at Tyler "—wants you to go to his house and watch a movie I happen to know you hate?"

"Hey," Tyler said. "Elle likes _Star Wars_."

"She likes the original trilogy, you idiot," Kyle said without bothering to look at Tyler, who he seemed to regard about as seriously as he might a bug on the carpet. "Elle, we have to get these costumes together. NebulaCon is the end of next month and we haven't even started."

Elle waved him off like she was trying to shake water off her hands. "Big whoop," she said. "I have too much going on right now to waste time with a guy who can't even be bothered to tell me the truth about himself."

"Are you gay?" Tyler said, with all the tact of a brick through a window.

"Yes, he's gay," Elle snapped. I frowned. Her sarcasm, judging by the satisfied expression on Tyler's face, had been entirely lost on him. She jabbed a finger into Kyle's chest. "You don't get priority with me," she said.

"I can see exactly where your priorities are," Kyle said. He gave Tyler a quick up-and-down, then, unimpressed, leaned in. "Take off that jewelry, Elle. It's messing with your head."

"No, _you_ are messing with my head," she said.

I abandoned the pretense of looking through my papers. Kyle stiffened when I tapped his shoulder. When he turned just enough to see me, he relaxed, but only barely.

"Everything okay?" I said.

"You want to do something about your 'friend' here?" Kyle said. "She appears to have taken a permanent rain check on reality."

"So I've heard."

Elle looked at me, her emotions tangled and murky. If the jewelry had been off, I might have called her curious. As it was, she was wandering around somewhere at the intersection of Annoyed, Confused, and Batshit Crazy.

I was helped a second later by Imogen. I didn't see her, but I felt her walking up behind us. I sent a wave of emotion at her: _Help._

Elle looked at me intently, like she was trying to figure out what I was doing there, then turned away from me with an aggravated sigh and said, "Look, don't make such a big deal about it. I don't even know if I'm going to NebulaCon."

Kyle's face flushed. "You what?"

"Oh, come on," Elle said. "We were only going as a joke. You knew that, right?"

Kyle's face flushed angry scarlet. His hands bunched into white fists at his side. He looked furious, but underneath his twitching jaw, I felt the splintered pain that was at the root of so much anger. I put a gentle hand on his arm.

"This isn't real," I said in a low voice.

Tyler had been eyeing Kyle for the last little while, trying to decide if this geeky kid was a threat. Now, he seemed to decide that he wasn't, maybe taking Kyle's hot face for embarrassment. He threw in his two cents. "That thing's on prom night," he said.

"Not that anyone's asked me," Elle added, a little too much flirting in her voice.

I was a little impressed that he knew when NebulaCon was. Maybe the love spell was at least good for encouraging listening. Or, I thought, maybe Tyler actually was a good listener and I hadn't given him a chance because he fell into every single rich-preppy-dumb-jock-douche stereotype I'd ever picked up from a high school movie. I reminded myself that I was a better, more complex person than to take a stereotype as truth.

Then, this newly-complex person added, "Elle is too pretty to waste that night on a geeky fag-fest."

Or maybe stereotypes existed for a reason. Imogen tensed behind me. Elle's eyes flicked toward her, then back at me. I was the biggest problem at the moment.

My fingers hurt and I realized I'd been gripping Kyle's arm. I let go, the air suddenly cool between my fingers.

I looked up at Tyler, scanning his face and seeing nothing but evidence of my own bad godmothering decisions. "Where the hell do you get off?" I said.

"Oh my God, Olivia!" Elle said. The weird tangled ball of emotions inside her shifted to accommodate embarrassment. It was about damn time. She had plenty to be embarrassed about, starting with this jerk.

"You know better than this, Elle," I said. "Yes, he's shiny and popular and will bring lots of people to your cafe. But you didn't strike me as the kind of woman to throw your integrity under the bus for some nice abs and social cred."

Her lips and eyebrows both drew together. Her brown eyes filled with hurt, sharp enough to cut through the charm fog, but then she slipped back into the mist and scoffed. "Give me a break," she said. "First, you're trying to throw this guy in my lap." She gestured toward Tyler, who was looking confused. "Then, you try to get me to ditch him. No offense, Olivia, but you kind of suck at your job. Make up your mind."

"You'd have slapped someone who used that kind of language toward your best friend," I said.

"Amen," Imogen muttered behind me.

She rolled her eyes, like she actually had the nerve to be disappointed in my answer. "You both seem to have forgotten one tiny little detail here. Yes, Imogen, both. I heard that. The thing is: It's my choice." She grabbed Tyler's hand, hard enough to make him wince for the briefest second before he hid it. "Whose faerie godmother are you anyway?" she snapped, and turned and walked off, dragging Tyler along with her.

I imagined if there was a God, he saw something like our school cafeteria every time he looked through his microscope. The room was a microcosm of humanity. It wasn't quite goths here, cheerleaders there, but it was clear who was with whom, and who didn't want to be seen anywhere near whoever else.

Tyler's group was full of rich kids, the kind who had latest-generation smartphones and liked to talk in loud voices about how poor people wouldn't be so poor if they'd stop buying McDonalds. It was the kind of group that normally would have driven Elle up the wall, but she sat in the middle of them, listening in on their conversation and looking like she'd never been anywhere else in the world. She'd gotten her hair highlighted since the last time I'd seen her, and I was pretty sure her pink nails were fake.

"At least she looks better," Imogen offered when she caught me staring. "She seems self-confident."

"She _looks_ self-confident," I corrected. "She seems brainwashed."

"You're right," Imogen said. "Still, it's not a bad look. At least she did more than brush her hair."

Imogen went back to the essay on World War II she was trying to read before World History that afternoon. I scanned the cafeteria, watching the diverse group of people that all managed to call this place theirs. The theatre kids were easy to spot. They were the loudest in the room, two had bright blue hair, and they were all draped on top of one another like a pile of kittens. A tight-knit trio of academically driven perfectionist girls whose rivalry I could smell from across the room sat eating and speaking to one another, occasionally falling into laughter that never felt entirely victimless. The entire manga club had holed up in a corner together, passing around a sketchbook. Here and there, the loners were gathered, little anomalies of one or two people who didn't have a group to sit with. The smart ones had brought books.

One of the tiny loners was familiar. Daniel sat by himself, alternating between scribbling into a notebook and picking at his food. I frowned. We didn't talk much at school, but I knew he usually had people to eat with and hang out with in the halls.

I reached out my energy toward him, trying to feel what he was feeling and see if something had gone wrong. But he felt fine. Calm, focused, creative, even. I wondered what he was scribbling in the notebook. Before I had a chance to wonder for too long, though, he stiffened. He turned around in his seat, fixed me with a judgmental stare, and then turned back to his book. When I reached out again, he'd thrown a shield up that would keep me or anyone else from getting too close a read on him.

"Humdrum wars are so boring," Imogen said. She set the essay down on the table and reached for her cranberry juice, flicking a finger up on the way and throwing a sound bubble around us so we could talk without being overheard. "I mean, it's all just people shooting at other people, and then bam, everyone dies." Her voice was flat and unimpressed. In Imogen's world, violent death wasn't exactly something to get up for. "Not a single curse. Not a single interesting quest. No story. Just pointless death after pointless death and meaningless battle after meaningless battle, and then somebody finally gives up and then ta-da, it's over. Everyone goes home. What is the point?"

"I think it's a little more complicated than that," I said. But I couldn't see much point to war, either, especially not the way the Humdrums did it. There weren't many real heroes and villains in Humdrum wars, no matter how the history books tried to paint things. Hitler had been a real villain, but then, he had been one of the most influential—and completely insane—magicians of his time, even if next to no one under his command knew about it. It was something most Glims tried not to dwell on.

World War II was the last Humdrum war we'd interfered in. Occasionally a Glim would dabble in a Humdrum conflict, usually witches who'd taken their political activism too far. But every group had a few rogues—maybe even needed them—and they weren't enough of a majority to drag us into another war. Most of us were peaceful and kept to ourselves. We had the rule of the Faerie Queen and the guidance of the Oracle to keep us on the right path and to catch and stop villains before they had a chance to gain power. We just didn't need big wars anymore. "Too bad the Humdrums are more than a few decades behind us on the peace thing," I said.

Imogen raised her eyebrows, looking almost impressed. "Well, I declare," she said in a thick but convincing Southern accent. "Miss Olivia said something less-than-worshipful about the Humdrums. Will wonders never cease?"

"Shut up," I said.

Imogen didn't dislike the Humdrums. She just liked to tease me about thinking their world was great. But she could tease all she wanted. The Humdrum world was just as good as ours, and I'd get a chance to live it myself soon enough.

A strong current of unrest from across the room made us look up. A second later, the heads of everyone else in the room followed. My eyes widened and I couldn't do a thing to stop the look of horror that took over my face.

Elle's oldest stepsister, Mallory, had just swaggered into the room. But this wasn't the busy, brisk Mallory I'd seen at Pumpkin Spice. She looked drunk. More than drunk. And her rumpled hair had somehow gone from brown to the unearthly neon green of lime candy.

She weaved through the lunch line, then toward the salad bar. She looked up at the room, which had gone silent, and swung her head slowly from one side to another, her neon green hair following a split second late. A high-pitched giggle erupted from her mouth. If there hadn't been so many bodies to muffle the sound, it would have made an echo. But there were bodies. Too many bodies, all staring at her.

"God!" she exclaimed, and hiccuped. Her gaze was too glassy to actually reach anyone, so she stared at us all equally with the dead-eyed intensity of a fish.

I glanced over in time to see Imogen mouth the words _Oh__… __my__… _before trailing off. The moment was apparently too much to even finish an inaudible sentence. I told myself to not be such a sheep, then gave up and went back to staring with the rest.

"You look like deers in headlights!" Mallory exclaimed. She blinked hard a few times, then said, as though it were important to clarify, "A whole _herd_ of deer in headlights. A _herd._"

She pointed toward us and nodded. The movement made her earrings swing. They were tiny, delicate purple stone teardrops.

I pulled down my glasses. A charm rose from them, a sickly green cloud that wrapped around her head and snaked into her ears.

I stood up, but I didn't have time to reach her. She'd been standing there long enough for someone to have gone for help. An middle-aged English teacher in a brown suit who I'd seen in the hallways but had never spoken to paused in the door, then headed straight for Mallory. He took her arm in a firm grip.

"God!" she shrieked again, turning to look at him. "Can't stand a little nonconformity in this place?"

He held her arm in one hand, put his other arm around her back to keep her steady, and said, "Come on." He looked and felt more disappointed than angry, but maybe that was worse. I knew from living with my parents that disappointment was much harder to deal with than anger.

Once Mallory and the teacher were safely out of the door, the sound in the room foamed up to a loud buzz. Everyone want to know what was going on, if she'd snapped because of the pressure, or whether she'd always been hiding a crazy streak beneath that "goodie-goodie" exterior.

I held a hand up to stop Imogen's forthcoming comment and turned the sound up in the room around me, aiming my magic so I'd pick up one or two conversations at a time.

_She__'__s on the honor roll,_ I heard from across the room. _Not anymore._

_I heard she got into an Ivy League school, _someone else said. _Geez, I hope no one puts that up online. I heard schools will stalk you online to catch stuff like this._

_I knew she was going to snap one of these days,_ a worried-looking senior girl said to a small cluster of her friends. I thought I recognized one of them. She'd been talking to Mallory the other day in the hall when I'd passed them on the way to Biology. _She__'__s been working full-time and I guess her stepsister__'__s been having some trouble at home and she__'__s been really worried. I knew the stress was going to get to her._

Mallory was on the honor roll? And had been accepted to a big-name school? And spent her spare time worrying about Elle, of all people?

"Probably a spell to relieve anxiety," I said. "Throw inhibitions out the window."

"What?" Imogen said.

"Her earrings," I said, impatient. But I was interrupted before I could say anything else by another grand entrance. Like they'd arranged it beforehand, this time, it was Cortney. I couldn't tell who had looked worse.

She stopped at the door and scanned the room. She was probably looking for Mallory, I thought, though she didn't look up to the task of doing anything that took that much energy.

"What happened to her?" I heard a girl at the next table over say in a hushed voice.

"Meth," Imogen said.

"Her necklace," I said. I'd developed a sudden superhero sense for jewelry, and my eyes had flown straight to the heart-shaped pink stone resting just below her collarbones, which jutted out like rocks. "What kind of freaking powerful charms did Elle put on those things?"

"Has to be medical-grade magic," Imogen said. "No one in their right mind would use something like that without professional supervision. She looks like she's lost ten pounds."

Cortney walked into the room, her eyes enormous and sunken in her gaunt face. Her skin had lightened four shades to the sickly white of a long-term hospital patient or video game addict who never left the house. Normally, watching her and her friends was like getting a front-row seat to the peppy cheerleader stereotype parade. But now she looked like she'd been strung out on hard drugs for years, and her friends looked horrified.

I felt out towards Cortney as she passed us. Her eyes darted anxiously around the room. Imogen had been feeling out, too, and she frowned after Cortney was out of earshot and said, "Weight loss spell," she said. "Really strong."

"She doesn't need to lose weight," I said. "This is dangerous. What's Elle thinking?"

"Come on, don't tell me you don't know what this game is called," Imogen said. She picked up her fork and pointed it toward Elle's table. "This is a classic and well-played instance of revenge."

"Revenge for what?" I said. "This is serious. Cortney could die."

I watched Elle. She stared down at her tray, pushing limp spaghetti around in circles.

"She's not going to die," Imogen said, but she looked worried. People died from spells all the time. A woman in Washington had run onto a pair of cursed shoes last year and danced herself almost to death. By the time the doctors at the Glimmering hospital up there spelled the shoes off, she'd passed out from exhaustion and dehydration. A spell that strong on someone who didn't even know magic was happening was asking for crisis.

Elle had gotten Tyler talking. She listened, a big smile on her face and her head tilted toward him like he was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen, but her eyes told a different story. They flicked every few seconds toward Cortney as she made her way across the room, then narrowed as Cortney started walking toward her table. By the time she reached it, Elle was paying full attention to Tyler and Cortney had to repeat her name several times in a weak voice before Elle looked up. She made herself look surprised. I wanted to turn her into a toad.

"Have you seen Mal?" Cortney asked. She sounded sick, and no wonder. Emotions swirled off her, exhaustion and urgency and hunger. It was like she was too tired and stressed to eat, even though her body craved food just to keep going. It was an ugly spiral, and had probably happened too fast for her to even know something weird was going on.

Elle shrugged one shoulder, her eyebrows raised just enough to give her the look of a real condescending asshole. "She was in here a minute ago," she said. "Completely drunk."

"Mal doesn't drink," Cortney said.

Elle's eyebrows went up even higher, condescension turning into skepticism. "Okay," she said, like Cortney was an idiot not worth bothering with. "Some teacher took her off to his office or something," she added. She sounded impatient for Cortney to be gone, but she didn't feel like it. The frazzled, staticky emotions coming from her held far more interest than she'd betray.

Where was the Oracle at moments like this? It was impossible to know what the Oracle could see or when she was watching, but if there was ever a time for her to intervene and save the day, this was it.

But she wasn't coming to rescue me. No one was.

I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth. The sweet acidic tomato juice exploded all over my mouth. "I'm going to go stop her," I said.

Imogen's eyes narrowed in concern. "I wouldn't, if I were you," she said.

"I can handle her." I felt for my wand. As always, it was nestled in my hair, holding up something that would have been recognizable as a French twist if it weren't for all the frizz clouding the effect.

Imogen grabbed my sleeve and tugged me back down to sitting. "I know you can handle her," she said. "I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about whether you should."

"You're kidding," I said. "She can't get away with acting like that. No one at the center of their own Story should get away with acting like that unless they're supposed to be the Villain."

"But she's not the Villain, she's the Protagonist," Imogen said. "And correct me if I'm wrong, because I do the Proctor thing, but I thought you were never supposed to get in the way of your client's happiness."

"She's not happy," I snapped. Even the gentlest reach in her direction showed that much. Her energy was scattered and sharp. Happiness didn't come into it. "Anyway, she's breaking Glimmering law. Mallory and Cortney aren't supposed to know about our world."

"I don't think they do," Imogen said. "Anyway, they're family, so they're allowed to know. And there's nothing against a relative gifting Humdrum family members with Glimmering objects or spells."

"There should be," I said.

"You take that up with the Family Rights Coalition," Imogen said, rolling her eyes. "Good luck."

I propped my elbows on the table and leaned forward, looking over at Elle. Cortney had left, and Elle was back to laughing at Tyler's stories.

This was all my fault. I should never have introduced her to that charms stall. I should never have told her the truth. I should never have taken this assignment in the first place.

"You can't interfere," said Imogen gently. "I know it sucks. But it'll only screw things up."

"How will it get _more_ screwed up?" I said.

But Imogen wasn't thinking about Elle or Mallory or Cortney. Imogen was my best friend, and she was thinking about me. "Elle's already gone off the deep end," she said. "There's not much you can do about it now. Those are her evil stepsisters. Stuff's not supposed to go right for them, remember? And you'll get fired if you mess anything else up." She met my eyes. They were glowing with the fire that only came from a good Imogen Dann pep talk. "You're so close to being done with this," she said. "And then you'll have more of the money you need to get you to that weird college. You're so close. Just get her to prom."

The pep talk wasn't enough to fire me up. But she was right: My client's so-called happiness came first, and if I ruined that, I would lose my biggest shot at earning the money I needed for college. And maybe Mallory and Cortney were suffering because of my bad choice's and Elle's stupidity, but then, I remembered, they were supposed to suffer. They were in the middle of a Story. I wasn't.

I didn't have a Story, and I didn't have to be a Hero. I was a faerie godmother—a fly on the wall who showed up once or twice in the whole stupid story to give the Protagonist the extra motivation or wealth or power to do what she needed to do. I'd already done that for Elle and equipped her to ride her Story through to the end and take down her so-called evil stepsisters while she was at it. I hadn't made her become an idiot. I'd just given her the tools.

If I was a better faerie godmother, maybe I could have stopped her. Maybe I could have stepped in like Tabitha did whenever one of her clients needed a little extra guidance. But I wasn't a good faerie godmother. I was an intern with a summer job, and I was only here for the fountain full of gold that would get me through my first semester. I was going to take the gold and run.


	21. Chapter 21

I didn't know why I even bothered to come here anymore. Elle stood behind the counter and Tyler ogled her from the brown couch, as always. The only difference was that the blond girl that followed him around like his own personal backup dancer wasn't clinging to him today. She was on another couch, curled in on herself, acting like she hadn't been crying. I'd discovered her name was Brittney and she and Tyler had been on-again-off-again since freshman year. She made a good pretense of just looking annoyed, but I could feel the weepiness dripping off her like tears out of a soaked handkerchief.

Kyle was with me. He nursed a black coffee and glared darkly at Tyler.

"Remind me why you're here again?" I said.

"I'm keeping an eye on her," he said. "Not that I don't trust you to do it. But, you know." He raised his cup in Tyler's general direction in what looked like the most sarcastic toast I'd ever seen. "You arranged that."

"Elle's dad arranged that," I said. It was a stupid argument and I realized it as soon as the words left my lips. I just couldn't stand the thought of anyone thinking this awkward debacle had been my idea. "If it had been up to me I would have just given her fifty bucks for her buying-Pumpkin-Spice fund and left this whole thing alone."

"You don't like this any more than I do," Kyle said. "What happened?" He nodded toward Tyler, this time more curious than annoyed.

I didn't want to start trying to explain to him how stupid my job was. I was afraid that if I started, I'd never be able to stop. "It's kind of an unethical field," I finally said. That covered all my issues nicely. Well, most of them. "Also, I suck at it," I added, and that was everything.

"At least you've got one thing to be proud of, then." He scoffed as he watched Tyler heave a sigh and smile like a handsome mannequin toward Elle, who was busy telling her customer in a high-pitched, rapid voice how bad the coffee she was about to serve her was. The silver-haired woman looked confused. I watched to see if anything interesting would happen, but the customer just took her coffee and went back to her table, mouthing _Wow_ at her friend as she sat down.

"It's so stupid!" Kyle said. The people at the table next to our window nook turned to frown at him, and he lowered his voice and said, "This is typical Elle. One minute, she's the smartest, most sensible person you've ever met. The next, bam. She's run full steam ahead with one of her stupid ideas and we're stuck at a furry convention wearing Ent costumes because she thought it would be funny and we're about to get literally bitten by a six-foot-four wolf."

I raised my eyebrows. "Traumatic memory?"

"Some of her ideas are awesome, don't get me wrong. No one gets great ideas like Elle. But she gets bad ideas too, and she goes after all of them with exactly the same enthusiasm."

"All enthusiasm, no discretion," I said. It matched what I'd seen of Elle so far. Kyle knew her perfectly, and still hadn't realized how much he liked her.

I was relieved to see Cortney appear behind the counter for her shift. I'd stolen the necklace from the locker room while she was in gym, and while she still looked tired, her face didn't have the gaunt haunted look it had before. Mallory had been harder to help; I'd slid an anonymous note in her locker advising her to claim she'd had a bad reaction to new antidepressants. I hoped she'd followed my advice. It would have been better to just wipe everyone's memories, but even Imogen could't have managed that.

Suddenly, Tyler stood up, vaulting himself off the couch and halfway across the room in a second. The upset blond girl unfolded her arms long enough to sit up straight, then slumped back into the couch as she realized he was headed to the counter where Elle was pulling off her apron. Tyler leaned over the counter and kissed her.

Watching them kiss grossed me out in a way I couldn't explain. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with them individually. They were good-looking people, and the kiss was nothing more than an affectionate peck. But their lips together were wrong. It was like oil and water, or two clashing colors that should never be put side-by-side. Kyle snorted, not even bothering to hide that he felt exactly the same way—though, I thought, probably for different reasons.

I tugged on my ear and turned up the volume on their conversation. "You look amazing," Tyler said. He'd started using a voice with her in the last few days that sounded like he was talking to a baby. The most disturbing part was that Elle didn't seem to mind. She bit her bottom lip and smiled like he was Prince Charming. Which, I realized with a cringing feeling in my gut, he technically was.

"Thanks, babe," she said. Her calling anyone _babe_ was also depressing.

There was nothing about this situation that wasn't depressing, I decided. Brittney agreed. She stared at Tyler and Elle like she wanted to dump her coffee right over their heads.

Tyler tapped Elle on the nose. "You deserve a break. Can I make you something?"

"No," Cortney said, cutting sharply in on their conversation. "Health and safety regulations. Only employees can be behind the counter." She seemed on edge. Hunger could do that to a person, and she'd had about a month's worth in the last few days.

Elle rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax," she said. I remembered this same conversation playing out with Mallory the first time I'd seen her, but with the roles reversed.

"I'll make you an Italian soda," Tyler said. "I'm a quarter Italian, did you know that?" He said it like he expected a gold star or participation trophy. Elle looked like she was about to give him one.

"No way!" she said. "I totally should have guessed. You have that sexy Italian stallion thing going on." She flashed her eyebrows suggestively at him. Kyle stiffened across the table from me. Jealous, tangled emotions fizzled off him in a way that made me thankful I'd never been in love.

Tyler poured club soda and hazelnut syrup and cream together onto ice in a clear plastic cup. He loudly explained each step to Elle like he was on a cooking show. The few people at the tables nearest the counter raised their eyebrows and watched from the corners of their eyes, but they seemed content to mostly ignore him. Kyle fumed.

"What a douche," I muttered, mostly for his benefit.

"Did you know that's the only offensive term related to a woman's body that Elle approves of?" Kyle said. "She says using female terms as slurs is degrading to everyone, since it implies that female bodies are inferior. She also has problems with calling girls 'whores' and 'sluts' because it victimizes and shames women who take ownership over their sexuality. But she says 'douche' is okay. Douches are bad for women's health, so calling someone who's bad for women a douche is accurate. And Tyler is a douche."

I'd never thought about it that way before, but somehow hearing Kyle rattle it off made him weirdly… attractive. "You should use that explanation to pick up girls," I said. "Seriously."

"I probably should," he said. "You think being a male feminist is enough to get me a date?"

"And you just called yourself a male feminist," I said. "If it wouldn't be totally professionally inappropriate, I would ask you out right now."

This got a small smile out of him, if only on one corner of his mouth. "Thanks," he said. "But no offense? Faeries scare me."

Our empathetic gifts made us, as Imogen sometimes put it, "all melodramatic emotions channel, all the time." I liked to think I wasn't as bad as most faeries, since my empathetic gifts were nothing to write home about, but I wasn't about to press that point with someone as in love with Elle as Kyle was.

Tyler and Elle walked back to the couch, Elle holding the drink he'd made her like it was made out of gold. She waved at me from across the room, mouthing a cheery _Hi!_ She'd completely forgotten how angry she was the last time we spoke.

"I'm sorry you have to watch this," I said.

What could she possibly see in him? I reached toward her, but all I could sense was affection mingled with ten kinds of mixed signals from all the mismatched charms. I wished I could get a word of sense out of her that didn't involve her blowing me off or getting mad at my interference.

I couldn't believe some people actually chose this job for a living.

"It's not him that pisses me off," Kyle said. "It's watching her and seeing what she's turned into. I heard about what happened with her stepsisters." His face darkened. "I know they're not her favorite people, but Mal and Cortney didn't deserve that. And the Elle I know would never have done that. She doesn't get along with them, but my Elle has dignity."

I liked the way he said _my Elle._ It wasn't possessive or even romantic. It was exactly the way I talked about Imogen sometimes when I felt protective of her. I loved that Elle had a friend who felt that way about her. It also made the way she'd abandoned him even worse.

Tyler was lecturing his group about trickle-down economics and his membership in some pretentious-sounding organization for teenagers who planned on being millionaire businesspeople someday. Elle listened intently, probably thinking this information was somehow going to help her use Pumpkin Spice to take over the world. She was the only one listening. Tyler's three other friends all had their phones out, and Brittney alternated between looking longingly at Tyler and sending death glares towards Elle.

"Maybe we'll get your Elle back if we can get those stupid charms off her," I said. I'd tried to magic them away more than once in the last few days, but she was on her guard and grabbed her necklace every time the clasp came loose, put extra fasteners onto the backs of her earrings when she felt them sliding out, and had started checking herself for every single piece every time she had a spare second. It was driving me crazy. The temptation to knock her out and steal the lot was growing, but she'd know that was me, and there was nothing to stop her from going back and getting more.

Maybe my dad had a point about the important of raising Glimmering kids within the culture. It was too difficult to try to acclimate them later. I didn't know who to blame. Her mom, for agreeing to hide her world? Her dad, for keeping her in the dark and then dragging her into a fairy tale without her consent? The Oracle, for allowing the case to go through?

Or me, for going along with the case, telling her about our world, introducing her to the hidden side of the Saturday Market, and then failing to clean up this mess?

Kyle sighed just as Elle yelped from across the room. "What's on the bottom of my cup?" she shrieked.

"Just keep drinking, babe," Tyler said, his voice way too casual.

She proceeded to down the last of the soda in one long loud draw from her straw. She shook the cup, rattling ice around, and peered through the clear lid to the very bottom. "Will you…" she read aloud, then shouted, "Oh my God! Will you go to prom with me! Aw, baby!" Her voice climbed up to the pitch people usually reserved for puppies. "You're so sweet, babe!" And then she vaulted across the half-an-inch between them and started kissing him, again making my stomach do the thing it did whenever I'd eaten things that didn't digest well together. Brittney stood up, her face red, and ran out of the building.

I should have been happy. This was the plan. But since when had happy felt so gross?


	22. Chapter 22

Shutting my bedroom door didn't block out the sound of my parents fighting. It wasn't the sound that was bad, though. It was all the emotions rolling off through the house in nauseating waves.

It never stopped amazing me how insensitive some faeries could be to the other faeries around them. Didn't they realize Daniel and I got a healthy dose of secondhand drama every time they started snipping at each other? I'd put on music to drown them out but then turned it off again. It was too much stimulation, so I just sat on my bed and watched the rain speckle my bedroom window

"I'm sorry this house isn't good enough for you," my dad said. A wall of anger slammed through from their bedroom to where I sat on my bed. I'd been exercising my empathic skills lately, and my throbbing head way the payoff. I hadn't felt their arguments like this in a long time.

My mom's voice was high-pitched and too fast. "You think this is about the _house,_ Reginald? You think this is about our _possessions?_ I'm so happy to know _that__'__s_ how you see me."

"What else am I supposed to think?" he said. "You don't want me to work late. You don't want me to take this special assignment for the Council. You don't want me to do anything to support our family. You want to move to goddamn New York and 'start over' in a 'real home.'"

"Not because of the house, you idiot," she said. "God, how is that your first conclusion? This assignment feels like trouble. I happen to have a good intuition about this kind of thing, or have you forgotten? Was my divination ability just something nice that made me look like a more attractive wife you could show off at parties, or did you want me to actually use it to help our family?"

My phone buzzed. I ignored it as my dad's voice rose.

"Someone attacked a bunch of goddamn Humdrum ghost hunters and I'm the one who has to clean that up," he yelled. "Me. Do you know how much goddamn work it takes to erase those memories and track down all the film of the incident? We still haven't found the culprit to bring him to the Tribunal. But no, you don't care about that. You want me to drop everything and move. The Oracle gave me this assignment. The Oracle. You think you're so special? You think you're as good as the Oracle?"

"Yes," Mom snapped. The pronouncement was so audacious I lost my breath for a moment. It sounded like Dad had, too.

A long silence held the house in limbo while we all waited to see what would happen next. Finally, I heard my dad's voice, and had to strain hard to hear what he said. "God," he breathed. "God, Marigold. You really have lost touch with reality."

A tiny sound near my door caught my attention. A second later, the door cracked open. Daniel's face peeked in, mostly just wide eyes and pale skin that felt as cold as mine. "Hey," he said.

"Come on in," I said. He ducked inside and closed the door behind him.

He shifted between his feet for a second. Both his hands were wrapped in tight white fists around his palm, clenching rhythmically like a heartbeat. I couldn't tell whether the tension in the air was from him or me or our parents or just the nasty mixture of all of them. I offered an encouraging smile. "What's up?" I said.

He shook out one of his hands, which instantly flooded with blood and turned back into the milky color that passed for healthy skin in the Feye family. "I was wondering if you'd do me a favor," he said. He kept his voice low, but whatever the favor was, it was important to him. He rocked forward on the balls of his feet. "You know my performance group."

He hadn't allowed me to say a word about it since the night at the restaurant. I felt almost flattered that he'd brought it up again, in an overeager kind of way that made me feel like my mom probably had the first time I'd acknowledged her in public after I'd turned twelve. "Of course," I said. "Your show was great."

"Yeah," he said flatly. "We're supposed to perform tonight at a park downtown. There's an arts festival going on."

There was always some kind of arts festival going on in Portland, but I nodded like I knew exactly which one he was talking about.

"I've got to go," he said. "I was wondering if you'd cover for me if Mom or Dad ask where I am."

My little brother was asking me to cover for him while he sneaked out of the house. The occasion felt momentous, like we were supposed to bond and then come up with a secret handshake or something. I ordered myself to play it cool and said, "Sure. No problem. Where should I say you are?"

Relief flooded his face and swirled into the tension between us like drops of food coloring into water. "Tell them the Yearbook Committee is meeting. That's true, if they want to check it. I'm just missing the meeting tonight."

"I didn't know you were on the Yearbook Committee," I said.

"Some other freshman dropped out and they needed someone," he said, sounding no more eager to talk about this than he was about his last performance. Still, he was actually talking to me. That was good.

"I've got your back," I said. "Just don't get into trouble, okay?" That came out more as a habitual older-sister impulse. I couldn't imagine Daniel actually getting up to any kind of real trouble. Then again, I hadn't been able to imagine Daniel as an avant-garde slam poet, either. "Break a leg."

He allowed me one tiny smile and a quiet "Thanks" before slipping back out.

The ruckus across the hall had subsided into whispers and hisses. They'd be done soon. I leaned over the edge of the bed and grabbed some textbooks out of my backpack, then spread them across the bed so I'd look busy if one of them happened to look in. I grabbed my phone and clicked the screen on.

Imogen's photo appeared at the top of the conversation.

_Imogen: Guess who got asked to prom?_ _This girl!_

She'd added about seventeen different smiling emoticons.

I pretended to be surprised, even though of course Imogen had been asked to prom, because despite what my life would suggest, there was still some order to the universe.

_Olivia: No way!_ _Who?_

She'd been anticipating my reply, because her response was long but almost instant. _Jacob Call! _It took a second, but then I remembered him as a good-natured guy with sandy hair who sat behind Imogen in English. She'd pointed him out at lunch before, saying he was "One of those guys who _looks_ like he should be a totally adorable farm boy, but he actually lives in town and he's super into chemistry and SAT prep and I don't think he's even been to a farm." She'd nursed a vague sort of crush on him, the same she had with half the guys in our year. He was different than the others, though, because he was one of us. His mom was Humdrum and he'd been raised mostly Humdrum—he was my kind of Glimmer—but he knew who we were.

_Imogen: He brought a bunch of balloons to my house &amp; I had to pop them &amp; inside each one was a puzzle piece &amp; when I put the puzzle together the whole thing started sparkling &amp; the pic of the kitten on the front sprang to life &amp; asked if I__'__d go to prom with him. OMG CUTE. I tried to call but SOMEONE wasn__'__t answering her phone. You have to come over &amp; see the kitten. It__'__s just a spell so it__'__ll probably be gone in a few days, but she__'__s adorbs. CALL ME. COME OVER. MISS YOU._

I couldn't handle the thought of being around people right now, even if "people" only meant Imogen. The fight seemed to have faded out, but the emotions still ricocheting around the house made me want nothing but a nap.

Olivia: _Aw! I__'__ll see you tomorrow after work, k? Daniel went to some art performance thing and I__'__m trying to get some homework done while the house is quiet._

_Imogen: Boring. Not gonna lie, I was getting a little jealous of Elle for getting asked by Tyler. I know you don__'__t like him but at least you__'__d know you were getting a hot prom night with a guy like that, right? ;)_

_Olivia: Ew. The only reason Elle will have a good prom is because I__'__ll be there putting freaking fairy dust in her drink._

_Imogen: Creeper. Also: Has Lucas asked you to prom yet? That boy needs to GET A MOVE ON._

Lucas and I had barely spoken since I'd almost plowed him down in the hall. Anyway, I reminded myself—as I seemed to do whenever his name popped up—Lucas had a girlfriend who wasn't me. I rolled my eyes and tossed the phone away.

By the time my mom came in to check on me, I really was doing homework. Reading was a poor substitute for actually handling plants and looking through microscopes, but my biology textbook still sucked me in sometimes. She knocked on the door. I looked up from a vivid green diagram showing the structure of a plant cell chloroplast as she ducked her head into the room.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her eyes were bright.

She needed a distraction right now. I felt so sorry for her it made my stomach clench. At the same time, I wished there was someone else around here so that particular weight could leave my shoulders.

For a brief, crazy second, I thought about telling her about my meeting with Amani. Maybe it would take her mind off her dad, or even give her a second to be proud of one of her kids instead of just constantly disappointed in her husband and full of regret that she'd chosen to get married and have kids at all. She'd never said that, of course, but I was a faerie. I knew things people didn't want to say, even ones I didn't want to know. Maybe it I told her about Amani, my parents would stop fighting long enough to realize there were bigger things going on in the world than their stupid marriage—things that involved _me._

Instead, I held up my textbook. "Plant cell structure," I said. "It's boring."

It was boring, compared to the news that the Faerie Queen had wanted me. And it was boring compared to the giant fight that would erupt if my dad ever heard I'd turned Amani down and hadn't heard from her since. That would give him something to scream about. But Mom shook her head. "Not to you," she said. "Don't you know everything about that already?" She glanced up toward my window boxes, which were heavy with green leaves stretching to the rainy light.

"Not everything," I said. "I'm good at keeping them alive but I'm still learning how they work."

"More power to you," she said. "I'm glad you have something you're passionate about." She looked at me closely, her eyes narrowing in concentration. "Don't lose that, okay?" she said. "Don't lose the things that get you interested just because other people don't approve of them. It's not worth it."

I had a feeling we weren't talking about me. Even if we weren't talking about me, though, it was a message that was nice to hear coming from my mom.

But I couldn't take it at face value. "Better watch out," I said. "I might not end up in Austria studying how to wear faerie wings properly or whatever they do over there."

Usually, snarky sideways comments like this were enough to earn a reprimand or at least a disapproving look from either one of my parents. But Mom didn't care right now. She shrugged and said, like she wasn't entirely talking to me, "Maybe that's not where you need to be."

My face contorted with surprise. Since when had one of my parents not responded to the threat of skipping Dad's university with at least a knee-jerk second of panic?

"You need to do what's right for _you,_ Olivia," Mom said. She was back to looking at me like I was a problem to solve. "Not anyone else. Your dad doesn't know everything."

This, I knew. But I'd never heard it come out of her mouth before, at least not seriously. I took a deep breath, then, half-convinced I'd regret it, blurted, "I'm not going to Austria. I'm studying biology in Oregon. Humdrum science."

Her eyebrows shot back up, but I wasn't fooled. She already knew.

She glanced behind her, then, apparently not seeing Dad about to jump out from the shadows, held my gaze. "Okay," she said.

"Okay," I said.

She nodded once. "Okay."

I couldn't help staring at her. I'd hinted at this a million times before, but I'd never come right out and said it. I was convinced that if I did, I'd have the Sixth Great Faerie War on my hands. But Mom was looking at me almost like she was… proud.

"Don't tell your dad," she added, before leaving me to sift through the daze of what had just happened. "Not yet. One crisis at a time."

As soon as the door had closed behind her, my phone buzzed again.

_Imogen: Don__'__t ignore me._ _Is Daniel at the festival downtown? We__'__re going. Your texts are giving me weird vibes and you need to get out of the house asap. I will be at your door in literally ten. Also, look sexy. Lucas is coming._


	23. Chapter 23

It was too cold outside for a festival like this to make sense, but this was Portland, and no one was going to skip out on fun because of the weather. The sky brooded heavy silver over the riverfront and misty drops landed like cold pinpricks on my skin. I pulled the hood of my jacket up, glanced around to see if anyone Humdrum was looking, then flicked my hand open toward my chest. Warmth bloomed, starting at my heart and quickly flooding the rest of my body as the enchanted blood circulated.

It was nice to be out and about without Elle tagging along. It seemed like every time I'd gotten out of the house lately, she'd been tagging along. Although maybe that was just because every time I got out of the house lately, it was to head to Pumpkin Spice to keep an eye on her. Being around Elle had started to give me with the same vague panic I felt as a kid whenever I tried to take my aunt Sophie's Great Dane for a walk before she'd up and moved to Thailand. It always got excited about something, pulled the leash out of my hand, and took off, leaving me chasing after and hoping it wouldn't cause a catastrophe before I got it under control.

Imogen stepped onto a bench looking out over the water and scanned the damp lawn sloping up toward the road. The lawn was littered with white tents set up as performance spaces and food vendors. I had a feeling she was doing this as much to be noticed as to find whoever we were meeting—she was all decked out in a stylish trench coat over jeans that made her butt look great, and she had on a pair of boots she'd spent way too much on. Her textured floral-print scarf curled around her throat like a pink-and-yellow cloud, and giant gold flower earrings swung from her ears in a way that almost brightened the dreary air around her. After a moment, she waved across the field to someone and hopped down. Two figures walked toward us, their bodies obscured in dusky blue shade and lit by orange from the street lights that lined the waterfront walkway.

The taller figure pushed his hood back as he reached us, revealing Lucas' familiar curly mop of hair. "I forgot how great Portland's weather is," he said dryly, glancing up at the sky. I suddenly had to dig in my purse for chapstick. Something about the way his hair blew across his forehead in the breeze as he smiled down at me made me feel like I couldn't even look at him without zoning in too closely on his face.

Imogen was right. He was cute. And I was his awkward middle school friend. _You need to get out more,_ I told my heart sternly, which had just started pounding like I'd been running.

The hooded girl standing next to him was no doubt his girlfriend, so there was no point looking at him like he was the first guy I'd ever seen. She had her hand in his and had a sharp eye on Imogen, sizing up the competition.

"If we waited for the sun we wouldn't leave our houses until July," Imogen said. "I'm glad you came out!"

He shrugged and smiled at me, though he was talking to her. "It's good to actually see people outside of school," he said. "I don't think I've left the house for a week."

"Except to come to my boring parents' house," said the girl next to him, leaning in and gazing up with big green eyes. "Which was _so_ sweet, let me tell you again." She bestowed a smile on Imogen, who was sizing her up right back. "Lucas is the best," the girl gushed. "My mom is one of those 'ladies who lunch' kind of people, which is oh-my-God tedious, and she's been running these exhausting fundraisers all week. She's had a different dinner party every day and Lucas came to all of them and sweet-talked old ladies until they practically forked over their checkbooks. He's so perfect."

"Apparently," Imogen said, managing to make the word sound like a compliment.

I attempted a friendly look at the girl. She glanced at me, smiled politely, and then looked away toward the water. I wasn't pretty or dramatic enough to even show up on her radar.

"I'm Aubrey, by the way," the girl said. She pushed back her hood a little. She was pretty enough that my stomach flipped over. Her delicate face had the classical Greek nose and strong cheekbones of a supermodel. Her complexion was even creamier than Imogen's, and her whole face was surrounded by a soft cloud of floaty, curling auburn hair that reminded me of bombshell actresses from the seventies. I glanced down. Even hidden beneath a black zippered women's hoodie, she clearly had a nice figure.

I didn't need to remind myself anymore that Lucas had a girlfriend, I thought. One look at this Aubrey person was enough to make me realize he was hopelessly out of my league in the first place.

Moments like this were reminders from the universe that I should never leave my house or bother liking anyone. The day had started out bad with Elle yammering on in the hallways about how her stepsisters "practically never showered" and had gotten worse when she showed up to lunch with a new set of earrings that gave off such a powerful attraction charm that I got a headache from trying not to gaze at her in admiration. It had crashed and burned when I'd gotten home to find my parents screaming at each other.

And now I was in the middle of discovering the only guy who ever even gave me the time of day probably considered our "friendship" a charity case, because there was no other reason someone like Lucas, who had a girlfriend like Aubrey, would talk to a distracted, socially awkward, frizzy-haired, stressed-out, glasses-wearing faerie like me.

Some days just weren't worth getting out of bed for.

I shot Imogen a glance to see if maybe she was interested enough in the new arrivals that I could sneak home early, but she had her phone open and was scrolling through a list of events. "Drum Circle at Dusk sounds kind of cool," she said. "I'm not normally into the drum circle thing but apparently they light their drumsticks on fire."

"I heard Fourscore Nevermore is playing," Aubrey said. "That's the only reason I came."

"Who are they?" I said.

"Are they the bluegrass group on here?" Imogen said, still scrolling through the schedule.

Aubrey raised her eyebrow just slightly as though she was too polite to say what plebeians we were. "They're a steampunk symphonic metal group," she said. I wasn't sure I understood half the words in that sentence, but nodded like I knew what was going on. "They're kind of obscure," she added, trying to kindly dismiss our ignorance.

"Aubrey's really into the local music scene," Lucas said. "I swear, she knows everyone who plays in the city."

She hit his arm gently. "Like that's even possible," she said. She shrugged one shoulder. "I just like to know what's going on. It's nice to know about great groups before they get all big and inaccessible." She rolled her eyes, as though getting "big" was the worst thing that could possibly happen to a group. I'd always sort of assumed being famous and popular was the point, but apparently I'd missed a memo somewhere along the line. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Your brother is performing here tonight, isn't he?" Lucas said, turning his deep blue eyes on me again.

When I was a little kid at Faerie Camp, there was one counselor whose only job was to teach coping skills to young faeries who were overwhelmed by all the emotions and magic around them. I'd never had that problem, my empathetic skills being uninspiring at best, but I'd overheard the counselor telling a panicky water sprite to pay attention to where her breathing landed in her lungs and to force it deeper, because she'd find serenity in the center of the deepest part of the breath. I discovered over the years that "breathing in serenity" worked great when my dad was yelling at me or when I had to mingle with people at my parents' fundraising dinners. It also worked great for staying calm when an attractive guy was looking at me and waiting for an answer, or so I hoped.

"I think so," I said. I forced myself to pay attention to my next breath instead of to the sharp line of his jaw. What was wrong with me? "I'm not sure we'll run into him, though. He's not super excited about me watching his stuff."

Lucas grinned. "I get that," he said. "I used to get so nervous when I was a kid whenever anyone would come to my school plays. I'd do anything in front of strangers, but people I knew always scared me. Such a weirdo," he added, and winked at me.

Aubrey shot me a razor-edged glare. I blinked at the wave of hostility coming off her, but a second later, my own idiotic emotions had taken over. _He winked at me,_ I thought, then took another deep breath and ordered myself to stop acting like a ninny.

I was worse than some of Tabitha's dewy-eyed clients. I knew my parents' fights always dropped my emotional defenses a little, but I hadn't realized they could turn a tiny attraction into a full-blown crush. Because that was definitely what this was becoming. Every time I'd smiled at him in the hall or waved across the lunchroom was, I now realized, a tiny symptom of an enormous problem that I'd been—rather skillfully—ignoring.

I _liked_ him. I liked him as a friend, of course. I always had. But right this second, I liked him as a _guy._ And that, given the svelte redhead on his arm who was glaring at me like I'd just stolen her last tube of lip gloss, was a big problem.

Imogen led the way across the lawn to the drum circle. We could see them setting up by the light of blazing Tiki torches. One of the girls who seemed to be in charge was covered in purple tattoos and wore a giant pair of plastic cellophane wings on her back. The guy working with her had dreadlocks to his waist and was shirtless in spite of the cold; when I looked over my glasses, I could see tiny tendrils of flame licking up his bare arms. Imogen read to us from her phone while we walked.

"_The Folie Follies is one of Portland__'__s most cherished artistic traditions,_" she said, somehow managing to focus on the tiny text on her phone and move confidently forward at the same time. "_Our aim is to bring performers of all ages and skill levels together for one spectacular night to explore our art, connect with other creatives, and share our unique gifts with the public. In a world that often verges on the hum-drum and worships the nine-to-five, our cherished ambition is to seduce viewers out of the ordinary routines of their day and make public spaces more magical._" She looked up just in time to avoid running into a teenage girl wearing a cat costume. "I'm down for that."

I lowered my glasses on the bridge of my nose. The people filtering across the lawn and waterfront weren't all Glimmers, but the crowd did seem to be made mostly out of us and the kind of Humdrums who probably wouldn't be too freaked out to know we existed. The girl with wings was a faerie—her wings were fake, of course, but it was always popular to trot out our historical cultural dress whenever fashion let us get away with it—and the guy with dreadlocks was a fire witch.

Looking around, I saw a magician in a top hat that leaked enchantment whenever he moved, several more faeries darting around, and a couple witches with black snakes wrapped around their shoulders. The snakes should have been still and frozen in this drizzly weather, but they coiled around and tasted the air like it was a comfortable day in July. A couple of teenagers huddled on the sidewalk lighting small ground fireworks; when I looked over my glasses, I could see salamanders bursting out with the sparkles and climbing up their arms.

We stood to the edge of the makeshift stage that held the drum circle. I positioned myself where I could discreetly watch Aubrey. She was almost as tall as Lucas but still managed to make herself seem small and helpless. One look over the top of my glasses told me she was as Humdrum as they came, so she wasn't helping herself with a glamour. She made small talk with Imogen, but kept leaning up to Lucas' ear to whisper private comments. He smiled down at her every time. A tiny dimple in the left corner of his mouth showed up every time his smile became more than a suggestion. I'd seen it before, of course, but I hadn't ever really _noticed._

The scattered crowd around us slowly grew and coalesced. This arts festival was bigger than I'd realized, because by the time the drummers started banging out rhythms that echoed up the lawn, at least thirty more people had showed up. More than a few of them recorded the event on their phones.

Daniel must be doing better than I thought. His art was weird, sure, but you didn't perform someplace like this unless you had talent.

I stood on tiptoe and tried to look past the crowd to the waterfront beyond, where all sorts of booths, tents, and stages were set up. I didn't know which one was Daniel's. Some guy's hair stuck up at lopsided angles and blocked my view. I'd stepped aside to see around him before realizing I recognized both the hair and the face underneath it as Kyle's.

I waved a hand at him. When that didn't catch his attention, I pushed a little jolt of energy toward him. It sizzled against his shoulder and he turned, startled. Then he caught my eye and his whole face expanded into a smile. "Hey!" he called over the loud conversation of the girls next to him. He ducked around them. "What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, probably," I said.

"Probably not," he said. He looked over at Imogen, Lucas, and Aubrey, who was now standing behind him with her hands belted around his waist and her chin propped on his shoulder. "Looks like you're here with friends."

"Lucky me," I said. I couldn't keep my voice from being flat. Still, having Kyle here was an upshot. It gave me someone else to talk to besides Imogen, who was jabbering a mile a minute to Lucas and acting like she didn't notice Aubrey trying to tease his attention back. It must be nice to be that confident in your powers of holding someone's focus. I had no idea what that would feel like.

"It's weird seeing you not working," Kyle said.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to have noticed that I didn't get out much. I glanced over at Lucas. Maybe if I'd attempted to get out of my comfort zone for two seconds when he'd first moved back to town, I'd be the one nuzzling his ear right now. Had he been dating Aubrey when Imogen had re-introduced us? Why didn't I know that? Why hadn't I been paying attention?

I was an idiot.

And I was even more of an idiot for caring.

"Not just friends, then," Kyle said, following my gaze. I reddened and shook my head quickly at him, hoping he'd take the hint and not say anything like that again. "Hey," he said, lowering his voice. "Your friend's dating someone you can't stand, right? I know how you feel."

I couldn't help a laugh. "You feel way more than I do," I said. "Pretty sure."

"Elle is a disaster," he said. He didn't even try to be coy about it. He looked toward the makeshift stage and scowled. "She's pissing me off."

"Love will do that," I said.

"Who said anything about love?" he said. "My best friend has turned into a manic-depressive Barbie doll. I don't have to _love_ her to know she's a moron."

"But you do," I said.

Something about tonight had my guard down. Lucas was taken. I was still in the middle of this case. My parents were still probably at home screaming at each other. I'd been acting the same way every day for the past few months and nothing had changed. Maybe it was time to step outside my box a little.

We both fell silent, watching the little group. Aubrey had apparently decided Imogen wasn't a problem. They chattered about some new dress store that had opened downtown. Before I could intervene, Imogen invited Aubrey along to go prom dress shopping with us.

I hadn't been asked to prom, of course. But I had to go chaperon Elle and make sure she had the spectacular rose-tinted 80s rom-com night her dad had paid for. But I'd be damned if I was going to show up in some sparkly pink storybook confection. I was wearing something black and sophisticated and the Grimm Brothers could bite me.

"You're in love with Elle," I said, after the silence had become too much. "You're crazy about her. And I screwed things up for you, didn't I? I threw her at that Tyler idiot and now your life sucks." I sighed. "I have a gift for that sort of thing."

Maybe that was why the Faerie Queen had landed on me as her improbable successor. I'd screw things up so much in the first year that everyone would panic and put all their energy into finally figuring out that Elixir of Immortality thing so she could be their queen forever. I'd be first in line to help. But then, I'd probably screw that up, too.

"I wasn't your client," Kyle said mildly. "You've done a good job of your actual case. It's not your fault Elle made bad decisions."

This comment struck me as unexpectedly sweet. I fought off the warm fuzzies and reminded myself again to not go out in public after emotional upheaval. "Thanks," I said, trying to be cool. I bit my lip. "I just…"

What the hell. I was going outside my comfort zone—why _not_ unload on a casual acquaintance?

I flicked my hand to throw up a sound bubble to protect us from Lucas, Aubrey, and anyone else who might be listening in. Imogen shot me a quick, confused look before she spotted Kyle. She quickly turned Lucas and Aubrey's attention to a boat on the river.

"I'm just so grossed out by this entire industry," I said, turning to face him. "It involves way too much interfering. I've messed things up for you and Tyler's wannabe-girlfriend, and I've probably messed with Elle and Tyler, too. And why? Because Elle's dad made a wish and the Oracle signed off on it."

That was going a little far, and I quickly added, "Not that I'm saying the Oracle is wrong or anything, because maybe there's a point to all this… But you know, maybe the Oracle just gets busy, too." Amani had seemed almost too normal when I'd met her, like sometimes she holed up in her palace and watched movies just like I did at home. Maybe the Oracle was the same way.

"Maybe the Oracle had just had a long day and signed off on this case without thinking it through," I said. "It's possible, right?"

Kyle looked uncomfortable. There was a long silence, during which I heard Aubrey tell Imogen that her best friend's apartment building was haunted. I glanced over to see her cling to Lucas for protection. The drum circle changed its pace, the steady rhythm picking up speed.

"So anyway, I barge in and I interfere with all kinds of stuff," I said, turning back to Kyle. "But they're going to break up eventually. And it's going to be a _mess._ It would have been a mess if I'd just put one love spell on them like I planned, but everyone would have gotten over it. But the kind of crap she's pulling? I don't even know what's going to happen when that implodes."

"Again," Kyle said, taking a sort of firm, reasoned voice I suspected he took a lot with Elle. "Not your fault."

"I introduced her to the charm seller."

"You don't make her decisions for her."

"You should be a shrink," I said. He raised an eyebrow at me and I plowed ahead. "The point is, she's going to be miserable and he's going to have a hangover he can't explain, and his girlfriend will have probably moved on by then. And for what? So Elle can have one night she's not even going to remember in ten years? Seriously?"

Kyle shrugged. "That's the game," he said. "But you godmothers have been doing this for thousands of years. The system's got to work most of the time, right?"

I thought about it, but I couldn't tell anymore. All the Cinderella tropes and Snow White archetypes all blended together in my head, each tied neatly with a happy ending like a bow. But whose happy endings were these, exactly? This story was leading to a happy ending for Elle's dad—and even then only if he kept refusing to pay attention—and nothing but confusion and frustration for everyone else.

What was the point?

"I don't know," I said. I felt completely defeated, the weight of my own failure and the system's failure settling on my shoulders. The only consolation was time. "At least everyone will go away to college eventually and we can pretend none of this ever happened."

"I'm not going anywhere," Kyle said, frowning at me with a little crease between his sandy eyebrows, which were just a shade or two darker than his hair. "I'm not giving up on her."

I checked to make sure he was serious. I'd given up on Elle twenty times in the past week, each time pulled forward by the sparkling heap of gold that was going to be my ticket out of this world and into one that made sense. "There's no telling how long she's going to stay addicted to that crap," I said.

"She hates it," he said. He had more conviction in his voice than I'd felt for anything in a while. Something in me perked up to listen.

Something perked up in Imogen, too. She twitched in the corner of my eye, and I saw her staring at Kyle and me like she'd just seen the answer to a problem. Her pupils darted between us, her mouth drawn into a subtle _O,_ and then she pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes for a second before her face relaxed into an approving smile. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn't have time to worry about it right now. Kyle was talking. His hands flew through the air in front of him, gestures carrying the intensity in his voice forward with extra weight. The drummers stopped playing and started talking about their next piece, but he barely glanced at them.

"Elle doesn't want to be doing all this," he said. "Not anymore. She discovered a cool new thing and got sucked into it, but now she's in over her head."

"How do you know?" I said. She seemed pretty confident to me.

"Because she's Elle," he said, like this was the simplest thing in the world. "She couldn't stop being herself for two seconds even if she tried. She's going to want to come back to herself sooner or later, even with all those charms messing with her head. She just doesn't know how."

"It's not hard," I said. "Leave the jewelry on the damn dresser."

"And try to break up with Tyler on her own?" he said. "Or worse, have Tyler see her for who she really is and not for the airhead she's glamoured him into seeing? Elle's strong, but she doesn't handle rejection super well. I mean, look at her family. She doesn't trust people not to ditch her."

He was even more perceptive than I'd given him credit for. "Maybe you're right," I said. I turned to watch the drummers, who'd started up again. One of them, a slender faerie with long black braids, vibrated over her drum, her hands rattling over its surface.

"I wish I could have just told her," he said, mouth drawn down. "I could have eased her in."

"Just like I didn't," I said, feeling the familiar wave of guilt and inadequacy. Why hadn't I thought it through?

He frowned at me. "Don't do that," he said. "Pity parties suck. Let's fix this."

I groaned and turned away from him. One of the five drummers had just lit the ends of his drumsticks on fire and threw them up into the air between beats. "How are we going to fix this?" I said. "Elle's going to the ball with her Prince Charming. That was what I got thrown in here to do. So technically it's already fixed. It just sucks."

"That's not a fix, that's just your lame job," Kyle said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward him. "Elle doesn't need a lame party with her 'one true love.'" He let go of me to make quotation marks in the air. His fingertips bounced up and down on either side of his disgusted expression. "She needs to get back to her loves, period. Elle lights up like a firework when she's involved in something she cares about. And for all the love spells and glamours and tricks, I haven't seen that look on her face once since she got involved in all this. Not once. So maybe you're doing your job, but you're not helping her."

I held my hands up. "What do you want me to do?" I said.

The drumming picked up its rhythmic pace, and Kyle raised his voice to be heard over the steady thumping. "I have an idea," he said, eyes flickering with intensity in the glow from the Tiki torches. He took a deep breath, suddenly sending scattered waves of nervous energy toward me. He took another deep breath, and, just as the drummers finished their first song, blurted, "Will you go to prom with me?"


	24. Chapter 24

By the time I stepped out of Clarise's Formal Wear, I was ready to snap. Aubrey had spent the entire four hours alternately complaining about how fat she was—the only fat on her that I could see was located in her breasts and butt, exactly where it should be—and talking about how great Lucas was. Every so often, she'd take a break in this schedule to frown at me as I tried on a prom dress and say things like "Well, at least an empire waist is flattering on everyone" and "The ruffle down the side is nice. It makes you look not quite so short." She, of course, looked spectacular in everything, as did Imogen.

And Imogen had been no help. I'd made the enormous mistake of telling her I was going to prom with Kyle the night he'd asked me. Four days later and she still hadn't let it go. No matter how many times I explained to her that I was still only going because of work and that he hadn't been harboring "secret feelings," Imogen insisted that he'd had his eye on me from the start. "I felt his emotions when he was talking to you!" she'd said, pinning a dark purple dress against my shoulders with steely fingers and staring at me with her _I__'__m not even kidding right now_ face. "He likes you, Olivia. Why is it so hard to believe that a guy might like you? You need to relax and live a little."

Imogen could talk. Her supervisor had gone on vacation, and her only jobs were to hold down the fort, answer emails, and occasionally go downtown and Proctor as a girl with a twisted ankle to see who would stop and help. If she did, she'd reward the good samaritan with the ability to always find their lost car keys. She didn't have to deal with running her own full case, or with Lorinda breathing down her neck for updates every time she showed up at the office.

Imogen walked me to the door of Pumpkin Spice before taking off for her Saturday yoga class. She got in one last parting shot. "I read his emotions, Olivia," she said. "You know how good I am at that."

"They weren't for _me_," I said, but she wasn't listening.

"Needy love," she said. "That's what that was. He was all need and love, and he was looking right at you."

"We were talking about Elle," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Elle wasn't there with us," she said. "He wasn't looking at Elle. Liv, I know you like Lucas. But he's obviously taken, and that girl doesn't seem like she's about to give him up anytime soon." She raised her eyebrows, suggesting she had opinions on Aubrey she hadn't shared yet. "You may as well go with the guy who's interested _and_ available."

She walked me in as far as the entrance, then stuck her head back in through the door before it closed and said loudly, "I'm telling you, Olivia. Kyle is in love with you." She pointed a finger at me, looking like an Uncle Sam Wants You poster. "Also," she added, "don't forget your mom's necklace for me for prom, okay? And I'll totally do your makeup."

And then she was gone, flouncing past the _Pumpkin Spice-_emblazoned windows and down the street in the full confidence that she knew everything. It must be a nice feeling.

I had to figure out whether Kyle was right, before the ball. If Elle really was sick of the whole thing, maybe she'd be ready to give this all up for the chance to go back to her geeky, free-trade-caffeinated version of normal.

She sat on the brown couches in a group of Tyler's friends. I met her eyes; she'd been staring at me. Her eyebrows were drawn together in an expression somewhere between confused and hurt. I frowned toward her, shrugging slightly to ask, _What__'__s wrong?, _but she snapped away from me as if embarrassed to be caught looking and went back to the group conversation.

I ordered a raspberry steamer from Cortney and drummed my fingers on the counter while Noah mixed it up. He seemed confident today. Maybe Elle's personality transplant had given him permission to be the competent one, or maybe working with Cortney was just a lower-pressure environment. Whatever the reason, he threw together the steamer like a pro, talking to Cortney the whole time about some gang that had started tagging in his neighborhood. "But get this," he said, not looking as intimidated as I would have expected someone like Noah to look while talking about gangs. "The paint they used? It was full of _glitter_." He looked gleeful at their ineptitude. "Purple glitter. I guess we're all supposed to be afraid of unicorns now." He handed the steamer across the counter to me. "Don't worry," he said. "I checked it for sparkles." He chuckled and went to the next customer's iced Americano.

I found a table along the wall where I could watch the group without being in Elle's line of sight. I fished a tattered copy of _The Great Gatsby_ out of my purse. Finals were coming up along with prom and I had to finish it; as an added bonus, it made me look like I was here to do something other than spy on Elle like a creeper. She looked up and over at me several times, but I kept a tab on her emotions and anticipated her glances. After the fourth time, she relaxed.

I tugged on my ear and turned up the volume. One of Tyler's friends from some athletic team said, "I mean, I've got no problem with people making out in the hallways if they're hot. But this chick? She should not have been kissing anybody in public."

"Or at all," Brittany said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Elle folded her arms but didn't say anything.

"Exactly," Tyler said, slinging his arm around Elle. Apparently he thought she was hot enough to make out in the hallways with. My fingers twitched. I wanted to glamour every unattractive person in the room and fling love spells around like parade candy, just so I could watch Tyler's douchey friends fall in love with the unwashed masses. "It's basic courtesy."

"I think—" Elle said, then fell silent.

"What's that, babe?" Tyler said, leaning down to her.

She was quiet, then shook her head. "Nothing," she said.

Maybe Kyle was onto something.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see Daniel's picture and name floating above his text.

_Daniel: Did they say anything?_

I smiled, just a little. It may have been four days late, but at least he was initiating some kind of contact.

_Olivia: Nope. I don__'__t think they even noticed you were gone, lol._

There was nothing terribly "lol" about it, but I figured a lighthearted approach couldn't hurt. God knew no one else in the family was attempting one. Mom and Dad had barely spoken to each other since the night of their fight, and their conversations with me so far had been polite, just going through the motions.

Elle pushed her hair behind her ear and sank back into the couch and Tyler's arm like she wanted to be small or maybe curl up somewhere and sleep. My phone buzzed again.

_Daniel: K. Thx._

I'd been distracted by the time we'd finally made it to his tent, but his performance had been weird but great.

_Olivia: You did great. I didn__'__t know you could dance._

I waited for some response while I sipped my drink and felt out toward Elle. But he didn't reply.

Someone else was keeping an eye on Elle, too. I felt a new, attentive energy enter the room—this case was sharpening my sensing skills, if nothing else—and saw Elle's dad behind the counter, taking checks and large bills out of the bottom of the till and watching his daughter. A pleased little smile played on his mouth. He felt like such a success.

If he paid half as much attention to what was actually going on with Elle instead of to what he _hoped_ was going on with Elle, everyone else involved in this mess would be a lot happier.

But I couldn't blame him too harshly. The smile on his face was real, and so was the contentment rolling off him. Elle was wrong, I realized suddenly. Her dad wasn't trying go distract her from the cafe at all. I hadn't seen her circulating petitions or trying to get Tyler's friends to picket the place in weeks, but that was a side effect.

Greg honestly just wanted to see her happy.

I frowned and swirled my drink around in my cup.

"Do you have your dress for prom?" Brittany asked. The question was directed at Elle, but another girl with dramatic dark makeup answered first.

"Yes. Oh my God, Britt, you are going to _die,_" she said. "You know how I couldn't find anything when we went shopping? Well, my mom took me to this vintage store when we were down in Cali and I got this dress that I swear to God belonged to Marilyn Monroe. I mean, not really, but it looks like it. Peter is going to _die._" People died a lot in her world.

"Awesome," Brittany said with a tight smile. "You're so lucky to have curves for that kind of dress." The other girl and I both seemed to figure out almost instantly that "curves" meant "fat." The other girl cut her eyes at Brittany, who had already turned to Elle. "What about you, babe?"

Elle nodded, the movement that was tiny compared to every other gesture I'd ever seen her make. "I found one yesterday," she said.

"And?" Brittany prodded.

"It's pretty," Elle said.

Brittany raised her eyebrows. "Okay, then," she said to the group. Another girl leaning against the back of one of the couches caught her eyes and smirked.

"Of course it's pretty," Tyler said, leaning in to squeeze her. "Everything my baby wears is pretty, right? You're like a little doll."

Elle curled in on herself even more. Normally, she would have told him not to call her a doll and to respect her as a woman and a business person. Instead, she just did nothing. I felt towards her, and I felt nothing. The inevitable buzz of her jewelry surrounded her, but underneath it all, she just felt tired. She gazed out the front windows of the cafe. Her eyes held the same longing I usually saw in indoor cats as they looked out on the world from behind glass.

"Did you guys hear about that restaurant that closed downtown?" one of the athletic-looking guys said, the loudness of his voice suggesting he'd had enough dress and doll talk for one day.

"Yeah!" another guy said. "What freaking babies."

Brittany perked up, attention on alert for gossip. "What happened?"

"Guy thought the place was haunted," the first guy said, like that was the stupidest conclusion in the world. "Said the pots and pans kept flying off the shelf, so he freaked out and closed the whole place down. Super successful restaurant. One of those seventy-five-dollar-a-plate kind of places. Just shut the whole thing down—bam."

"Wow," she said. "Some people."

"For real," he said.

I sipped my drink. This was familiar, somehow.

I remembered Aubrey telling Imogen that her best friend's apartment building was haunted. My mom telling me months ago that Dad was working late because some idiot had filled a Humdrum building with poltergeist charms. Queen Amani's frown and comment, _We__'__ve all been having trouble._ My dad yelling about some case of his with someone attacking ghost hunters.

I set the cup down on the table. Someone was inventing ghosts and planting them all over Portland. Someone was trying to freak us all out.

No, more than that. Someone was trying to freak out the Humdrums.

A shiver ran all through my body, tingles creeping down my arms and legs like I'd been hit with someone's stage fright coming at me from every direction.

In an instant, I understood, without having to think about it more or ask any more questions. Someone was trying to scare the Humdrums. They were doing it on purpose, they'd been at it for a while, and they'd been able to evade my dad, the Council, and Amani. Someone was trying to cause trouble, they were serious about it, and they were good. Maybe even better than the Faerie Queen herself.

Suddenly freezing cold, I clutched my steamer in my hands and sipped it, eager for warmth.

I couldn't prove it; I just _knew,_ the way my mom sometimes did. My own struggles with Elle suddenly seemed pitiful. Who cared what an intern godmother did with her first case? Maybe it didn't matter so much what I did with her. Hell, maybe the Oracle wouldn't even care. If my dad and Amani were trying to figure out what was going on with all the weird hauntings, the Oracle had to be working on it, too. Maybe I could slip Elle under the radar.

Suddenly, my plans for the prom stopped feeling like a risky act in self-sabotage and started sounding brilliant instead.

They started sounding even more brilliant when Tyler turned to Elle and said, "At least you're not going to that nerd fest with that charity case friend of yours, right?" and Elle suddenly looked sadder than a basset hound.

"I doubt he'd want to go with me now anyway," she said in a little voice.

"Good," Tyler said, the idiot lovesick look I was responsible for back on his face. "Because you're all mine, aren't you, princess?"

Behind the counter, Greg had the pleased expression of someone who knew the ending to a story and expected no surprises. _Not so fast,_ I thought.

_Olivia: Operation Cinderella is a go._

I put my phone back down and started planning exactly how I was going to pull this thing off.


	25. Chapter 25

The theme was "Starry, Starry Night." Most of the girls had taken that to mean "rhinestones, and pile 'em on!" One girl had even found a minidress printed with the Van Gogh painting and then attached a diamond-spangled black chiffon mermaid skirt to the hem. It should have looked tacky but it actually turned out amazing. She was a Humdrum, too. Evidence, I thought, that not all Humdrums "lacked the creativity and follow-through only magic can provide," as my dad had pronounced at dinner the other day.

Imogen had talked me out of the slinky black dress I'd been picturing. "Don't be ridiculous," she'd said. "Your hair is dark. Your skin is super pale. You will look like a chess piece that can't decide which side it's on." Instead, I'd found a deep teal gown with one shoulder strap made of twining gold leaves and a belt in the same pattern. It fell in tiny chiffon pleats down to the floor. I felt odd in the thing—it was about a thousand times fancier even than the dresses my parents made me wear to fancy dinners—but I felt pretty, too. That was an okay change of pace.

Being in this room, however, was not. Prom didn't feel that much different from fundraising dinners, except the crowd was younger and more awkward. "Maybe not more awkward," I said to Kyle, after reflecting a little. "People at fundraising dinners have the whole thing going on where they're trying to discreetly hint at how much they're donating. There's always some woman who corners me and says 'Don't tell your dad, but I donated _five thousand gold _to this cause tonight! I must be so drunk! _Don__'__t tell your dad._'"

"Classy," Kyle said. He high-fived me.

I pulled a paper cup of butter mints off the table and tossed a pink one in my mouth. We'd wandered immediately to the refreshments table, where I was happy to stay the rest of the night. So was Kyle. He wasn't a bad date, all things considered—both of us were interested in the food, and both of us were there for Elle. If I was our faerie godmother, I'd match us immediately.

Prom was being held in a ballroom downtown, and its hardwood floor, warm fairy lights, and elaborately carved white U-shaped balcony looking over the room made it feel like the kind of place that deserved overpriced dresses and the ungainly attempts at romance starting to bloom all over the dance floor. The couple I was most interested in, though, hadn't arrived. I'd texted Elle, asking if she wanted some help from her faerie godmother to get ready for the ball, but said Tyler's friends were getting ready together. She didn't call them _her_ friends, I noticed.

I hoped Kyle was right. Otherwise, this evening was going to get a special kind of uncomfortable.

If it hadn't already. I spotted Lucas across the floor. Aubrey was clinging to him as usual in a slinky dark purple gown that made her hair look even more spectacularly fiery than usual. It was unfair for someone our age to be as pretty as she was. Weren't we all supposed to be stuck in the ungainly "I can't figure out where my elbows are" phase for at least a few more years? She had no trouble figuring out where her elbows were, or in positioning them and every other part of her anatomy in the most attractive form possible.

"You're right; it's disgusting," Kyle said, looking toward her.

"Don't magic me," I said.

"I'm not," he said. "Your face says it all."

It wasn't like he was any more discreet. He jumped whenever a blond girl walked into the room, then sunk back down to pick foil-wrapped chocolates out of a giant crystal bowl.

A few minutes after I actually started counting the number of times Kyle perked up and deflated again, his eager patience was rewarded. Elle swept into the room on Tyler's arm, leading a whole group of his friends.

It took me a second to realize what was different. For the first time in weeks, she looked like herself. And herself was magnificent. She floated in a stunning sleeveless gown with a skirt made of layers and layers of rose-pink tulle. Fabric roses peeked out from under ruffles and cascaded down from a ribbon in her hair. The gown's pink-lace bodice hugged her and made her look like the had the bearing of a queen.

But the best part of the whole ensemble was the fact that she wore no jewelry at all. Not a brooch, not a necklace, not even a set of diamond studs for her ears. Her skin was bare from the dress on up, flushed rosy, but from nerves or excitement instead of magic.

I felt out toward her. Nothing but her own faint nerves met me, and the void felt like clean spring air. I grabbed Kyle's hand. He gaped at her, eyes sparkling.

I'd never seen someone actually in love before. Not like this. He looked at her like she was the sun and the moon and the stars and every first-edition comic book he'd ever seen all rolled up into one.

And she looked past him like he wasn't even there.

Tyler, who was more like a catalog model than ever in his three-piece suit, pulled her onto the dance floor in time for the music to switch to something slow. Elle fell into his arms like she belonged there, the grace of her bare arm up against his shoulder giving her the effect of a swan covered in flowered garlands. Golden ringlets spilled from where they'd been artfully pinned up on her head and she seemed shy and unsure of herself. It wasn't a look I was used to seeing on Elle, but it did something nice for her.

Tyler had noticed. He leaned in until their faces were almost touching. They looked perfect there, him handsome and her beautiful, him leading her around the floor while she followed with her eyes demure and downcast.

They looked perfect, and wrong.

Even now, during the grand ball her dad had paid for in wishes, she looked like she didn't belong.

Kyle's jaw set as he watched them. Emotions warred on his face, rapture at Elle and anger at the guy who had her in his arms.

"You okay?" I murmured.

"Fine," he said.

"This is going to turn out okay," I said.

For the first time, he looked like the unsure one. "She seems pretty happy," he said, watching her with a look that said he wasn't sure whether to be happy for her or just pissed off.

I put a hand on his arm. "She still gets a choice," I said.

I couldn't make many promises to anyone right now. But I could promise him that much. I'd barreled ahead without giving anyone choices for quite some time now. It was time to settle that score.

Or it would be, if I could get Elle to look over here long enough to catch her attention. For a second, I thought she might be leaning up to kiss Tyler. But then I saw her face contort into annoyance and watched her say something to him. Something sharp, from the looks of it. They only had to turn a little in their dance for me to see exactly what was going on.

His hand rested on her butt. She grabbed it and put it back up on her back. He pulled her closer, leaning down at her with the lovey-dovey romantic face, and then down the hand slipped again. This time, she smacked it away and took a step back. I tugged my ear just in time to hear what was going on.

"What's your problem?" she said.

"I don't know what you're freaking out over," Tyler said. To either his credit or his shame—I couldn't decide which—he looked genuinely confused. "It's prom night, babe. I'm supposed to give you the night of your life."

"Sticking your hand on my ass isn't the way to do it," she said. For a brief second, she lifted her head and her eyes flashed.

_That_ was the Elle I knew.

Kyle, who was eavesdropping with even less discretion than me, quirked his mouth.

She stepped back into his arms. "Let's try again," she said, as if she was scolding a small child. "You're a very nice guy, Tyler. You're trying to be one, anyway," she amended, as if the first thing hadn't been entirely truthful. "You need to keep being nice."

"What's not nice about this, baby?" he asked, leaning in and nuzzling her ear.

I expected her to get upset at him again. She stiffened for a second, and then she sighed and patted his shoulder, like he'd done the best he could. And maybe he had.

"Never thought I'd be stuck with you," she said, more to herself than to him.

"You _are_ stuck with me, baby," Tyler said with an over-earnest voice and intense stare. "You're stuck with me forever."

This didn't have the romantic impact he'd been expecting. She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh. Then, with no warning at all, her face crumpled and she squeezed her eyes shut as if to hold back tears. She buried her face in his shoulder before he could see. Thinking he'd wooed her completely, Tyler pulled her close and they kept tracing the same worn-out circle on the polished floor. Waves of loneliness rolled off her like this was the closest to love she was ever going to get.

"He needs to get his hands off her," Kyle muttered.

"You need to remember how patience works," I said firmly. He hadn't noticed her crying; Tyler's hands all over her back occupied most of his attention.

I pulled another paper cup of butter mints off the table. "Listen, you keep an eye on them," I said. I couldn't watch them and worry about him all at once. It had been a long few weeks; I could only do so much at a time. "I'm going to walk around, okay?"

"Sure," he said. He glanced at me just long enough to offer a smile, then went back to staring at Elle and Tyler like they had broccoli in their teeth and it personally offended him.

Love was weird.

I skirted the edge of the dance floor, watching for anyone I recognized. We'd shared a limo with Imogen and Jacob. They were in the center of the dance floor now, of course. She seemed to like him a lot. I was glad. He was a nice guy, and Imogen didn't always go for nice guys. He twirled her and her gorgeous lavender silk gown swirled and lapped around her ankles. Next to her, Brooke from my English class danced snuggled up to her boyfriend. I couldn't remember his name.

Looking around, I realized I didn't really know the names of that many people. I recognized them by sight, and I could pick out the Glimmers in a split-second by looking over my glasses, but there weren't many people I'd call friends. I'd always been like that—happy to have just one or two friends that I cared about deeply. And I could pick them out on the floor in a split-second, too. The first was Imogen, who laughed as Jacob dipped her into an elegant back-bend. The other was Lucas. We weren't really that close of friends anymore. We had been once, though, and I had a hard time letting friends go once they'd made it onto my VIP list.

Maybe that was why I couldn't seem to stop staring at him.

Cortney and Mallory stood together near the door, talking to one of the chaperons. They looked better than they had the last few times I'd seen them. Elle's charms seemed to have worn off completely. Mallory looked like she was already into her sophisticated twenties. She wore the same kind of slinky backless black gown I'd pictured for myself tonight, and her hair had been swept into a sleek French twist. Cortney was her exact opposite in a short, fluffy yellow dress and curls held up with diamond pins. I waved at Cortney as I passed, and she waved back and said, "Hi! You're Elle's friend, right?"

I nodded, a little surprised she recognized me as more than a Pumpkin Spice customer. "Kind of," I said.

"We're all super glad Elle is getting some friends," Cortney said.

"Well, some of them," Mallory said, looking darkly out toward the floor where Kyle was still attempting to sneak his hand down to Elle's butt. "The less rapey ones."

I'd never been categorized as "less rapey" before, but it seemed like a good thing.

"Oh my God, Mal," Cortney said. "This is why people accuse you of having no tact. You heard it here first, folks," she announced to the chaperon and I.

"_Please, _girls, not now," the chaperon said. Her familiar tone made me look twice. She looked a little like Mallory, with high cheekbones and dark hair.

Mallory caught me staring back and forth between them and relaxed into a smile. "This is our mom," she said. "Deborah. Mom, this is one of the girls Elle's been hanging out with."

Deborah smiled at me. She had a pretty, vaguely Italian face, with strong dark features and olive skin. "I'm so happy to meet you!" she said, and her voice was warm. "It's so great to meet one of Elle's friends. Aside from her friend Kyle, she doesn't really seem to want us to meet anyone." She shrugged, like this was simply to be expected when you had teenagers.

I caught a wave of panic from across the floor. I looked up, startled, to see Elle staring. Her gaze darted from me to Deborah to each of her stepsisters in turn, then landed back on me. Her eyes were wide, like she was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't figure it out. I frowned at her and drew my eyebrows a little together, but she only shook her head quickly and tried to wave me over.

"As you can see," Deborah said. She'd caught the little exchange and looked like it was no more than she had expected.

Elle definitely didn't seem to want me talking to her stepmom and stepsisters. But Deborah seemed pretty okay. Mallory was nice, if a little tactless—and if anyone should understand tactlessness, it should be Elle. And it was impossible not to like Cortney. She was like a puppy: occasionally exhausting but essentially lovable.

_What?_ I mouthed to Elle. I gestured toward her stepfamily, trying to show her it was okay, but she just looked more freaked out.

"I guess I'm not supposed to be hanging out with you guys," I said. It seemed better to awkwardly say it than to sit there while we pretended we couldn't see Elle waving me off.

"It's all good," Mallory said. She sounded bored with the whole thing. "We're used to it."

"She likes us deep down," Cortney said. "Secretly."

"Really secretly," Mallory said.

I gave them all an apologetic smile and then moved on, circling the room. Kyle stood up on the balcony with a few wallflowers and couples looking for a little privacy. With him spying on Elle and Imogen busy shaking her hips to the catchy pop song that had just started, I was free to go back to watching Lucas. Every good prom needed a couple of lovesick stalkers angsting in the shadows, right?

It shouldn't have been so interesting, just watching him. He was just another guy. But I couldn't kid myself. He moved with more grace than other guys. He smiled with more warmth. He looked down at Aubrey with more sincerity than anyone else in the room looked at their dates.

I would have given anything in that moment to be her.

As the gods of irony would have it, she was unimpressed. In fact, she seemed annoyed. She was talking to him with her eyebrows raised into tense auburn lines on her forehead, and there was a little concern mixed in with all his affection on his face. She'd probably broken a nail, I thought bitterly, and he was just a nice enough person to actually care.

When the song changed to another slow one, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. She let herself be pulled, but her face against his shoulder didn't look nearly as content as mine would have been.

If she was going to be with him, the least she could do was be grateful. I scowled and forced my attention to Mallory, who'd just been led onto the floor by her boyfriend. He was a senior, too. I'd seen him around the halls and in the library a couple times, but we'd never met and I didn't know his name. They spun together for a while, and then he stopped, shook his head slightly, and went back to dancing. Mallory's dreamy smile turned into a frown, but she kept moving, too. A few minutes later, he shook his head again and blinked a few times. Mallory flushed bright red, and a few people around them stopped dancing to look around.

What was going on? I took a few steps forward, trying to see. And then it hit me: the overpowering stench of bad gas. Judging from Mallory's cherry-colored face, it had come straight from her.

Cortney, who was still talking to her mom, mouthed _You okay?_ Mallory clenched her face into a tight smile and nodded. She said something to her date, who laughed and shrugged.

The other people around her weren't so kind. A few girls looked down their noses at her and dragged their dates away, and one guy guffawed loudly enough that I could hear it from here. "Can't paint a fart!" he said, his voice booming and making his date cringe and tug on his sleeve with a will-you-please-shut-up expression all over her face. He held out his hands in innocence and said, "What?" just in time for her to march away.

I leaned back against the wall and tugged on my ear. "So sorry about that," Mallory muttered to her date. She put a hand against her stomach. "I have no idea what I must have eaten."

"Meh," her boyfriend said with a good-natured shrug. "That's what I like about us. We've gotten to that point where we're basically just slobs who sit on the couch and watch movies and fart. I think that's a good thing."

I had never heard anything so simultaneously awkward and romantic. I kind of loved him for it. Judging by her smile, Mallory did too.

She'd just opened her mouth to reply when a thunderous fart ripped through the air. I couldn't stop the hand that flew to my mouth. She flushed again, looking too shocked to try to cover anything. Deborah, still standing on the sidelines, moved to go onto the floor to rescue her, but Cortney put a hand on her mom's arm and shook her head. "Better if I do it," she said in a low voice. She offered Mallory a bright smile and moved onto the dance floor, her cheerful energy putting a leak in the embarrassed tension that surrounded her sister.

"And this is why no one should go to the Cortes Taco Cart right before prom," she said with a grin. She touched Mallory's elbow. "Come on over to the refreshments table. Maybe we can find something to settle your stomach. Mom's always got something in her purse."

Mallory, looking more discomfited than I'd ever seen her, squeezed Cortney's arm. She turned to her boyfriend, who immediately nodded and held out his hand. Cortney smiled and turned to lead the way off the floor.

Then, so quickly I could barely see it happen, the zipper at the back of Cortney's yellow dress fell open like the seams around it had all come loose at once. The top of the gown fell open, exposing her back—and her front, though I couldn't see that from here—so fast she didn't have time to do more than gasp. The dress had slid halfway off before she caught it and clutched it to herself.

The whole thing had taken only a second, but that had been long enough for anyone who had her in their line of sight to see everything the bodice of the dress had kept hidden.

"Whoa, baby!" a guy shouted from across the room. Judging by the movement and sound of another guy hitting him and hissing at him not to be a douche, I judged he'd had a good view.

Cortney whimpered, and Mallory grabbed her arm. "What the hell?" she said.

"I don't know!" Cortney said, her voice quiet but nearing a whine. Deborah was already halfway across the floor to them. Her dark eyes flashed to mirror Mallory's, the two of them daring the world to say another word.

I met Elle's eyes across the room. She'd been staring at me, just waiting for me to catch on. And when I finally did, my blood began to boil.

I barely felt my legs move, but the next thing I knew, I was halfway across the floor. I stared down the general direction the "whoa, baby" comment had come from and said, in a voice more authoritative than my own, said, "I strongly suggest everyone mind their own business." A girl nudged another girl and whispered in her ear, making her giggle. I turned sharply to them and added, "That could have been you. Don't be a jerk."

It was good life advice for everyone. To my surprise, most of the room seemed to agree. A few of Mallory and Cortney's friends detached from the crowd and hurried after them, concern all over their features. Everyone else seemed content to mutter and then go back to whatever they'd been doing.

Tyler stared after Elle's stepsisters as they left the room. After a moment, he leaned over to Elle and said, "You're not kidding about the evil stepsisters thing. I can't believe someone as classy as you is basically related to them."

He had no idea what he was talking about. Until this moment, it would have just annoyed me. Now, I felt only contempt, the burning kind that wouldn't even let me look at him. I glared at Elle.

I should have noticed when I'd talked to them, but I'd been too distracted by Lucas and by my plans for later this evening—plans I wasn't even sure I was willing to go through with anymore. Mallory's necklace had been enchanted. So had Cortney's earrings. They were both loaded with some kind of stupid prank charms, and Elle had thought it would be a good idea to pull them out on prom night, just because she could.

I shouldn't have been fooled by the way she came in here this evening all accessory-less like she'd decided to handle this magic business like an adult. She wasn't an adult. She was a pitiful, spiteful child, and she didn't deserve to touch magic or to be loved by someone like Kyle.

More than anything, she didn't deserve me. I'd almost lost my job over her, and I was about to risk losing it again, just because I had this crazy idea that maybe her happiness was more important than my job security. But she wasn't worth anything over. Not after this.

She shrunk in on herself. I glared at her in silence. She opened her mouth, as if she could possibly have anything to say that would make the anger coursing through my veins burn any less fiercely.

I leaned in until I was so close I could have kissed her. "I quit," I spat.


	26. Chapter 26

I was halfway across the room before Elle caught up to me. She grabbed my arm and spun me around. "_Please,_" she said.

I yanked my arm away. But she looked so upset that I stopped marching. Her eyes were round and pleading. "I did not mean for that to happen," she said. I put my hands on my hips and glared, waiting for her to start rambling on about what she did mean and how it wasn't her fault, but she fell silent, watching to see if I believed her.

"Go on," I said. People were giving us weird looks. Anyone who was dancing had to maneuver around us, and I didn't want the attention, so I walked to the edge of the floor. Elle followed me. I leaned against the wall and waited, knowing she had no defense.

She bit her lip and twisted her hands together, then said, "I completely forgot I'd set those charms," she said. Her voice was tiny. "I've been forgetting a lot of stuff lately. I've been having a hard time thinking clearly."

"Badly managed magic will do that to you," I snapped. It was hard to feel any sympathy at this point. I'd warned her more than enough. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have gotten the memo.

"I know," she said.

For the first time, she said it like she actually did know, like somewhere in the past few months she'd actually bothered to listen. I pursed my lips and waited.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I got excited. I get kind of crazy when I get interested in stuff. Kyle always says my mind is a serial monogamist—obsessed with one idea at a time before it switches gears. Those charms were amazing. I got carried away."

"Enough to humiliate your sisters like that?" I said. "Seriously, what is your problem with them? They're nice. Your stepmom's nice, too."

I saw her stop herself from rolling her eyes, just in time. She pressed her lips together and then said, with the hesitance of someone trying to be both honest and generous, "Our family didn't blend so well back when my dad got remarried. Intellectually, I know they're decent people. We've never connected."

"Hard when you're screwing them over with enchanted jewelry you're not competent enough to handle," I said.

She took the blow more graciously than I expected. She blew out a long sigh. "I know. That was stupid. Look, Mallory and Cortney and I are never going to be friends." Her eyes darted up to meet mine. "If that's what you're holding on for it's just not going to happen. I just can't go there, you know? They're not my family. Deborah is never going to be my mom."

I held up my hands. If she thought that was an apology, she was doing them wrong. "I'm sorry your response to that is to humiliate them in front of everyone they know," I said. I pushed off from the wall, ready to get some air and get out of here. But she stepped in my way.

"Me too," she said, the urgency of her voice trying to convince me to stay. "Like, a lot. I can't believe I did that."

I folded my arms and let myself fall against the wall again. I felt oddly grateful for its solid weight; I needed some kind of ally right now, and if a wall was the best I was going to get, well, I'd be thankful. "Why did you?" I said.

To her credit, she actually took a few seconds to think about it. After a moment of tense silence, she said, "I don't know. I was stressed. It seemed like an easy way to relieve some of the pressure."

"What pressure?" I said. "You seemed like you had destroying your dad's business pretty much in hand."

"What pressure?" she repeated, incredulous. "Are you kidding? _You._"

My eyebrows shot up. She was really going to try to pin her bad behavior on me? "Seriously?" I said.

"Yeah, seriously. I was doing fine and then you marched in and started trying to hook me up with Tyler, which was bad enough, and then you told me there's a whole world of magic going on right under my nose. Yeah, that was a lot to deal with."

A freshman girl and her date brushed past us. Elle stepped out of their way and stood by the wall facing me. She lowered her voice. "I'd been focused on my business and what I was going to do after high school. But this?" She waved a hand at me, seeming to try to indicate not just me but everything I represented. "Imagine someone just walking up to you and saying 'The sky is hot pink and you have to date this random kid on the soccer team or the world is going to end!' That wouldn't throw you for a loop?"

"I didn't say the world was going to end," I muttered.

"And then I found those charms, which were awesome, and they made me feel super powerful and on top of the world so I gave in and started dating Tyler—which was a bad decision on my part, let me be clear—and then—" she cut herself off, at a loss for how to explain what happened next.

"It snowballed," I said.

"Exactly," she said. "I could feel it happening but I couldn't think straight enough to even realize it was the charms. Which seems so stupid-obvious now, but my brain wasn't working straight."

Which I could have told her.

"It's been stupid," she said. "I've been so stupid. This whole thing has been a mess. And now I'm here with Tyler, which is… ew."

"I thought you were starting to like him."

She gave me a look that, despite my lingering irritation, made me laugh. "Give me a break," she said. "Tyler is the kind of guy I can barely get through a conversation about the weather with. There is nothing going on in his head except basketball stats and weird political opinions he inherited from his rich parents and opinions on whether or not he'd 'tap that.'" She shuddered. "And his friends are the worst. I don't even remember what it feels like to be around people who don't weird me out." She ran a hand through her hair, forgetting it was still done up in curls and ribbons. "I don't even remember what being myself feels like!" she said. "I know I used to care about stuff and be interested in things and not be a jerk to my friends, but I feel like I've forgotten all of that. I just kept doing whatever popped into my head. I didn't even think about giving them those charms. It just sounded funny." She frowned. "It doesn't even make sense now. Why would that be funny?" She shook her head as if that could shoo all her thoughts away. "Anyway," she said. "I'm done with that."

"You sure?" I said. "You really want to give all that power up?"

She held my gaze. "Absolutely positive." She bit her lower lip again and said, in a more timid tone, "Are you really dating Kyle?"

It took me a second to place the question into this conversation. When I did, my expression widened. "No," I said. "We're here as friends."

"You said something the other day at Pumpkin Spice," she said. "Or Imogen did. Or someone. My memories from the last little while aren't great."

_I__'__m telling you,_ Olivia, Imogen had said._ Kyle is in love with you._ No wonder Elle had looked so sad the other day.

She was in love with him, too.

Maybe this wasn't a disaster, after all.

I'd totally failed as a faerie godmother intern at Wishes Fulfilled, but I was still a faerie godmother. And Elle had been a class-A moron over the past little while, but she was still my client. We were both kind of stupid, and we'd both messed up more than a few times since we'd been thrown into each other's paths. But did being imperfect mean we couldn't make the best of our situation?

"I'm so sorry," Elle said.

I blew a stream of air out between my lips and allowed the tension of the evening roll off me. I could still feel it vibrating on her. "I'm not the person you should be apologizing to," I said.

I pushed off the wall again, took her arm, and pushed her out from under the balcony. Kyle still stood up there, watching the spot where we'd left the dance floor, determined not to miss a second. I waved up at him, but he didn't see me. His eyes locked with Elle's for a long second before she turned bright red and ran away.

She pressed herself against the wall we'd leaned on before. A new kind of panic was in her eyes.

"I can't talk to him," she said. Her voice quivered. I couldn't tell if she was scared or about to cry. "He hates me! And I don't blame him." She rolled her lips together, looking up toward the ceiling, and I saw bright tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. She wouldn't let them fall. She breathed carefully through her mouth a few times, then blinked hard. "I'm a jerk, Olivia," she said, still looking up. "Why would he talk to me after this?"

Elle's Story had gone exactly right. It was only ten and she'd already had a dance with her assigned dream date in this gorgeous ballroom. Doing anything to disrupt this evening would be to subvert her story and risk it all going wrong. If Lorinda was right about how this all worked, Elle missing even a few hours with her designated Prince Charming could upset the magical balance of the city and, in turn, the world.

But I had to give Elle a chance to choose.

Elle had deserved to know she was a Glimmer. I'd known that, and even though I'd handled it badly, I hadn't been wrong. And now she deserved to decide what happened next.

"I did something tonight that's probably going to cost me my job," I said. "Again. Probably for real this time." I took her hands in mine. "But I did it because I need to take responsibility for my decisions and make things right. You need to do the same thing."

"I can't talk to him," she said.

"You have a shot at happiness," I said. "Elle, Kyle really likes you."

She stared at me, eyelids fluttering as she tried to take in what I was saying. Did she really not know?

"We're friends," she said. I raised an eyebrow at her. She flushed. Her eyes darted around the floor as if she'd find answers scurrying around like mice. Then she dared to look up. "Really?" she said.

I sucked on the inside of my cheek and nodded, watching her face closely. She flushed again, but this time, the pulsing warmth accompanying the pink glow wasn't embarrassment. "He makes me really happy," she said.

"I know," I said. "So are you going to suck it up or what?"

She laughed a little. It was almost a giggle once she'd factored in the nerves. That was all I needed.

I was a faerie godmother, damn it. It was time to manufacture some happily ever afters.

* * *

Elle and I slipped through the shadows like shimmering ghosts. I led her past the catering kitchen and down a darkened hallway, where we slipped past storage closets and small conference rooms.

I stopped outside a door, hoping it was the right one. I'd given Kyle the signal ten minutes ago; calculating at least two minutes for his excited panic to run its course, he should be in here by now.

I took a deep breath. "You sure you don't want to stay with Tyler and live out your fairy tale?" I asked.

She started to roll her eyes at me, then stopped herself. "Sorry," she said. "You're going out on a limb for me here, aren't you?" She looked to my face for confirmation. I tried to make it as confirming as possible. "I'm sure," she said.

My heart fluttered in my chest. This was actually kind of exciting. Maybe this was what all the godmothers meant at the office when they talked about having "the greatest job on earth." It wasn't exactly researching new plant species in the Amazon, but looking at Elle, I had to admit it had something going for it. The nervous glint in her eyes was the most satisfying thing I'd seen in a long time.

I knocked softly on the door. A voice called for us to come in. I put my hand on the handle, took one last second to memorize the look on Elle's face, and pushed open the door.

I heard her gasp long before any kind of expression registered on her face. A hand flew to cover her mouth as her jaw fell open.

"Oh my God," she breathed.

Kyle and I had magicked our way into the building this morning and spent an hour on making it perfect. This small conference room had transformed into something to take her breath away. White fairy lights ringed the room, giving everything a soft glow, and we'd pinned old tablecloths we'd found in a closet to the walls and glamoured them to look like a billowing white tent. In the center of the room, draped across the conference table, lay a stunning white dress.

Elle reached out to touch it. She didn't breathe.

We'd enchanted the crystal beads sprinkled across the skirt to twinkle and wink just like the stars in the sky. The bodice was beaded in flattering patterns clear up and over the straps, and a white umbrella sat open next to the gown, sheltering a giant bouquet of white roses and orchids. A delicate pair of glass high-heeled shoes sparkled next to the gown.

He held out a silver necklace with a single dangling crystal charm in the shape of a star. His charcoal suit and silver tie made him look older and handsome.

But the best part of the whole tableau was the look on his face. He was breathing Elle in like she was the first truly beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life, and she was crying.

"How did you—" she said, then clapped a hand to her mouth again and mumbled, "I don't even—" before she had to swallow to keep the shreds of her composure.

Maybe this wasn't the greatest job on earth. But it wasn't the worst.

Kyle stepped forward, holding out a hand. "Let me take you through the stars," he said.

The line was corny, but he'd assured me that this was an important quote from _Starship Mine_ and that I needed to keep a straight face while he said it. I did my best, but it wouldn't have mattered. They'd both forgotten I was there.

She held out her hand. It actually shook. And then her hand was in his and he had pulled her in for a hug. She clung to him.

"I am so, so sorry," she said into his shoulder.

He gave her a tight squeeze and rocked her back and forth. "It's okay," he said. And it was, just like that.

I could have waved my wand and completed Elle's transformation in the twinkle of an eye. But it was much more fun to drag her and the dress to the bathroom, guard the door while she changed, and then tease and primp her hair until it looked exactly like Astra's from _Starship Mine._ I did pull my wand out of my hair—where it had been cleverly glamoured to look like a silver hair stick—to stud her curls with tiny diamonds that twinkled in the light. For the last touch, I held up the crystal necklace Kyle had been holding and told her to turn around.

She backed up, her glass slippers clicking on the tile floor. "Not wearing that," she said. "It's got a spell on it."

I put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around. "Yes, it does," I said. "A nice, low-key spell I performed myself. I've been doing these since I was eight years old at Faerie Camp."

"That's a thing?"

"That's a thing," I said. "And this charm isn't going to do anything weird. It's for clarity. Both about your feelings and about anything going on around you. I figured you could use a little of that after the last few months."

I fastened the chain around her neck. Her hand flew to the charm and she closed her eyes and sighed, a long, cleansing breath that sounded like she'd been holding it too long.

"Kyle's got a pumpkin coach waiting out back," I said. "They're all the rage right now," I added at her confused look. "They're organic and super trendy and whatever. We thought it was appropriate."

She knit her eyebrows together like she was about to ask a question, then shook it off and said, "Whatever you say." She stepped back to examine herself in the mirror. Neither of us could help smiling.

"You're gorgeous," I said. "Now get your butt out of here." The NebulaCon costume ball started at midnight on the dot, and I didn't want them to miss a second.


	27. Chapter 27

It took me five minutes to magic the conference room back to its usual drab state and shrink the gown, shoes, and lights into doll props that fit in my handbag. Now that my date was gone, I was ready to be gone, too. I darted my way across the ballroom floor to Imogen, who was the center of attention as she shimmied to some bouncy pop song blasting through the speakers.

Before I reached her, I caught sight of Lucas. He was alone in a chair against the wall, his chin propped in his hands. Aubrey was nowhere in sight.

What else was I supposed to do? I changed courses.

"How's it going?" I called over the music. When he didn't seem to hear me, I nudged his foot with my jeweled shoe, and he looked up.

"Hey," he said, forcing a smile. I dropped into the empty chair beside him.

"What's up?" I said. "Where'd your date go?" I looked at his face, then followed his gaze across the room, where Aubrey stood in the center of a group of guys. She laughed and punched one of them lightly on the shoulder.

Yikes.

He blew a long stream of air out, making his cheeks puff up. "I don't know what happened. Last I thought, we were fine. But I guess I didn't get her the right corsage or something and I forgot to make dinner reservations in time to take her to her favorite restaurant, and she just flipped."

I tried not to be smug. "That sounds frustrating," I said instead.

"She said I 'ruined her special night,'" he said. "This was her prom. It was supposed to be 'magical' and I blew it."

He was trying to brush it off with sarcasm, but he was hurting. Before I could talk myself out of it, I put a hand on his shoulder. "That sucks," I said. "Like, a lot. Do you want to get out of here?"

"Where would we go?" he said.

I bit my lip, not sure how he was going to take this. "NebulaCon," I said. "My friend Elle just left for their costume ball and I'm going to go meet her. We're supposed to be in costume but we could probably just claim we're from some obscure anime."

His mouth quirked up a little. It was the closest to a real smile I'd seen so far, and I nudged him with my shoulder. "The people watching's going to be great," I said.

"You still know my weaknesses," he said. We'd gone to a high school football game once in middle school, trying to be cool, and he'd spent the entire thing picking out people in the audience and telling me what he thought their stories were. I'd forgotten it till now.

I raised an eyebrow and wiggled in my seat, silently prodding for his answer. Finally, he laughed, not like it was funny but like of course his evening had come to this. "Okay," he said. "Aubrey's going to be pissed but honestly I don't really care right now."

"Good," I said. I hoped I sounded supportive instead of triumphant. I couldn't tell if I succeeded, but he didn't immediately change his mind, which was good enough.

A minute later, I yanked Imogen out of the circle where she'd been attempting to teach everyone a complicated-looking shoulder roll. Her face was flushed with exhilaration.

"Elle went to her geek convention with Kyle," I shouted. We were standing way too close to the speakers.

"What?" Imogen screamed, still barely loud enough to be heard. "What about Kyle? Did he kiss you?"

"I'll tell you about it later!" I shouted, then, remembering that I didn't have to do this, touched my silvered wand. A bubble of quiet sprang up around us, making my ears ring. "Elle and Tyler are over," I said. "She and Kyle are going to another party together. I'm headed out to go join them."

"What?" Imogen repeated, this time more incredulous than confused.

"And I'm taking Lucas," I said. "This whole thing is a bust. I'm probably going to get fired tomorrow, so tonight it's all c'est la vie, you know?"

"If you say so," she said. She glanced back at Jacob, like she wasn't sure how to tell me she didn't want to come. But Imogen and I had never really needed words.

"I'll tell you more about it tomorrow," I said. "You guys have an awesome time. Tell me if he kisses you!"

"Are you sure?" Imogen said. "I thought you'd finally decided to keep your job. And what was that about Lucas?"

"It's done," I said. "I think everything's done. The job, Lucas and Aubrey, everything." I didn't know if it was good or bad yet, but what did it matter? Tonight, I'd had a success that I'd carry with me for a long time. Tomorrow could worry about itself. "Have an awesome night."

She winked at me, still concerned but trying not to look like it. "I think I've got that down," she said.

I left her doing some kind of complicated shimmy while the girls around her giggled and tried to imitate it and Jacob looked at her like she was the sun rising in the morning. Which, of course, was as it should be.

I met Lucas at the front door. His tie was askew. "I told Aubrey I was leaving," he said immediately, without being asked. "She's not happy. We should get out of here."

Both of our lives were turning into tangled messes tonight. And tonight, we just didn't have the extra energy to care. We ran to the next light rail station just in time to catch a car. I clambered on behind him and we took off, the city racing towards us with the thrill of freedom.

I'd had the idea in the back of my mind that few gatherings in the world could be as awkward as a high school prom.

I stood corrected.

"This is actually the greatest night ever," Lucas said. We sat together against the wall, clear plastic cups of lemonade in our hands. He gestured out toward the dance floor with his drink. "This part is, I mean. The other part sucked."

"And tomorrow's going to suck," I reminded him, ever the beacon of encouragement.

"But right now is awesome." He raised his glass and I touched mine to it. The plastic walls bent a little together and then sprang back. I took a long sip, enjoying the way it was too lemony and too watery all at once.

The floor in front of us was jam-packed with the weirdest group of people I'd ever seen. Coming from a faerie, that was saying something. Two girls waltzed together in front of us, one in a short lace kimono with long swords strapped to her back, the other in a leather corset and towering top hat covered in clockwork. Behind them, a stormtrooper swept a girl in a silver catsuit across the room, making her almost run to keep up. The room was filled with what Lucas informed me were "Browncoats," anime characters with neon wigs and inch-long eyelashes, and at least seven Princess Leias in slave girl costumes. A guy in a bathrobe shuffled past us in slippers, clutching a towel and muttering about "Vogon poetry," whatever that was.

It was spectacular. And I was having a great time. Everyone in the room embraced their weirdness at a level I'd never seen before, and it was kind of

Elle danced over after a while and pulled me up by both hands, telling Lucas that she just had to talk to me. "Waltz," she ordered. "I'll be the guy."

I actually knew how to do this, thanks to the stuffy parties Dad had always dragged Daniel and I to, so I slipped right into position. She wasn't bad at leading, which, I realized, should have been obvious from the first.

"Thank you," she said simply. She was completely at ease now; not fighting anything, not protesting anything, not trying to make anything be any different than it was right in this moment. She squeezed my hand. "I'm not sure I should be thanking you, because the last few months have been ridiculous. But I am grateful, because…" She trailed off, then looked across the room at Kyle, who was leaned against the wall and watched us—watched her—with a smile playing on his lips. "I really like him," she said. "I didn't realize it until I didn't have him anymore. People are so dumb like that. I hate when I'm 'people.'"

I knew exactly what she meant.

"We've never really fought before," Elle said. "He always just puts up with me. And once we started fighting I realized how good I have it, and I think he realized that he wasn't guaranteed to be my best friend forever, so he may as well risk it." She couldn't stop her smile from spreading. "He was worried about 'ruining the friendship,'" she said. "Can you believe that? But he kinda wants to date now."

"And you?" I said.

"I'd be clueless if I didn't jump on that," she said. "He's the best person I've ever met. I just can't believe he likes me like that." She shook her head a little, trying to shoo the strangeness of it all away. The strangeness clung to her, a delicate sense of newness and possibility that crept across her skin like tingling cobwebs. "I really like him, Olivia. Like, a lot." She looked at me intensely, willing me to understand.

Suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore. I burst out laughing, my skin sharing her giddy tingling. "I know you do," I said. "I'm your freaking faerie godmother!"

"You are, aren't you?" she said, then grabbed my face in both her hands and said, giving me a little shake, "_Weird_."

"On that note," I said. I'd been thinking about this a lot lately—thinking about how I could really help her instead of how I could make other people's hopes for her come true. "I think you should talk to your dad. He really does want the best for you. Maybe you can find a way to make Pumpkin Spice be what you want without, you know, making your family starve."

She pursed her lips at me, but I could feel her joy clearly enough to know she wasn't annoyed. "I will," she said. "I realized while I had all those charms on that sometimes, the way I act with them and the way I act without them isn't that different." I felt her happiness flag a little.

Impulsively, I gave her a quick hug. "It'll work out," I said. "I'll bet Kyle's willing to help you figure out what to say."

Her joy flooded back. In between the stars sparkling in her hair and skirt to the happiness radiating from her face, she was all lit up.

This was what true love looked like. Maybe it would last forever and they'd tell their kids about tonight. Maybe it would last a few weeks before they realized they were better off as friends. But I was sure, looking at the way they glowed whenever they glanced shyly across the room at each other, that they would be friends and maybe more for a long, long time.

I waved Kyle over. He sprang from the wall and reached us in what seemed like two steps. "Almost midnight," I said. "I think this dance is for you."

I left them spinning slowly on the floor together, drowning in each other's eyes.

Lucas raised his cup towards them when I sat back down, Elle's happiness still tingling down my arms. "When did that happen?" he asked. "I thought she was with that kid on the basketball team."

There was no way to explain. For the first time, I wished Lucas was a Glim so I could tell him everything. "They've been friends for a long time," I said. "I think they just realized it was okay to let it be more."

"Good for them," he said. The wistfulness in his eyes made me almost sad. He glanced at me, caught me watching, and quickly looked back out toward the floor.

Being a faerie wasn't fair sometimes. His expression hadn't changed, but I'd felt the way his heart had skipped a beat when he'd looked at me, and the confusion that had overtaken him a second later.

He still had a girlfriend, I reminded myself. Fighting didn't mean a breakup. Everything wasn't going to change tonight.

"We should dance," I said, my voice bright as Cortney's to break the tension. I hopped up and held out my hand, shaking my hips a little in a way I knew was more ridiculous than alluring. "Come on."

Ten seconds before midnight, the room started screaming a countdown. They were celebrating the beginning of NebulaCon, which would officially kick off in the middle of the ball. But they may as well have been cheering for Elle and Kyle. As the room shrieked and laughed around them, they looked at each other like the world was there just for them. Kyle put a gentle hand on Elle's cheek and leaned in. Their lips met just as the clock struck midnight and the room exploded into cheers. It was the most beautiful kiss I'd ever seen.

My happily ever after could wait. Elle's was more than enough for tonight.


	28. Chapter 28

I drifted through dreams where Lucas and I wandered deep through a forest, enchanting wild mushrooms to dance to the pulsing beat of dubstep. But before my alarm clock beeped enough times to bring me fully to consciousness, the sinking feeling in my stomach let me know today would not be a good one. Last night had been perfect. This morning was like waking up and realizing I'd blown my entire paycheck on bubblegum and cotton candy.

I would face the Oracle today.

The Oracle only ever spoke to the godmothers at noon and midnight, except on very special occasions. For five minutes at noon today, the park holding the Oracle's Fountain would become strangely empty. The Humdrums wouldn't know why they left or fell asleep; they wouldn't even realize it had happened. And in those five minutes, my fate would land squarely on my shoulders. I felt the weight already.

At least I had the memory of Elle's face last night to focus on, and the text on my phone that said, _Kyle just got me Summer Glau__'__s signature! Omg! HE IS THE BEST._ I had no idea who Summer Glau was or why her signature was worth three exclamation marks, but the giddy joy rising off the words was was unmistakable.

Imogen met me at the door to Wishes Fulfilled, wearing a loose sweatshirt and a hoodie. She looked exhausted but happy, at least until she got a good look at my face.

"I'm supposed to be out glamoured as a squirrel with a hurt leg to see if anyone stops to help," she said. She managed to roll her eyes through her concern. Animal glamours weren't her favorite, mostly due to how big she claimed people's nostrils got when they cooed down at her. She gave me a quick squeeze.

I tried to relax into the hug and remind myself that at least Imogen would still be my friend after today. I couldn't say as much for anyone else in the building, or, for that matter, my own home.

"I'll be cheering you on," Imogen said, which was sweet. I'd barely had time to text her the whole story before falling into bed last night, and I knew she must be burning with a million questions. "I'm trying to pick a spot close to the Fountain but we'll see what happens. Good luck!"

An icy chill hit when I walked into the office. Lorinda was behind her glass windows. I caught her eye as I walked past. She didn't smile. Neither did Aster or Maybelle. They'd both peeked out when my footsteps had sounded, but their heads popped back into their cubicles almost as fast. Aster looked scared. Maybelle looked like she thought I deserved what I was about to get.

Word had spread fast. But I shouldn't have been surprised. These women were busybodies for a living.

The morning dragged. The monotony of the filing papers only gave me time to think up horrible scenarios. I didn't even know for sure what the Oracle did when a faerie godmother failed. Tabitha had told me a horror story about a junior godmother who'd botched one of her early cases. The girl had lost her job, been punished by the Oracle for upsetting the balance, and ended up checking herself into a Magical rehab clinic for fairy dust addiction. She'd been in and out of there for years, Tabitha said, and never really moved on with her life.

That wouldn't happen to me, of course, I told myself. I was more sensible than that. I was grounded. I was calm. I was a lowly intern. And I had made the right decision.

My confidence lasted a whole three seconds before another slew of nightmare scenarios started chewing at the edges of my thoughts.

When quarter to noon finally arrived, it was almost a relief. Lorinda stepped outside her office, her presence thickening the tension in the room. She crooked a finger at me. "You," she said. "Downstairs. Tatania help you. This is what I get for letting an intern do a godmother's job."

I didn't know what she had to be so defeated about. She wasn't the one about to lose her job and face the wrath of Reginald Feye, who would no doubt ship me off to Austria by mid-afternoon.

Lorinda and I rode down in the elevator in silence. Aster and Marybelle would both have their noses pressed against the glass. This was too juicy for anyone to miss. I would have watched if I hadn't been the one on trial.

We stood right in front of the sprawling, mesa-like fountain, Lorinda finally turned to look at me. "Do you have anything you'd like to say?" she asked.

I shook my head, then, realizing she deserved more than sullen silence, changed my mind. She'd given me a second chance and I'd blown it—willfully and completely. "I'm sorry," I said. "I really am. This must be aggravating for you. I just couldn't do it."

"It's not our job to judge," Lorinda said in a pained voice. A pedestrian walked past us down the sideway. I wished I could grab his arm and walk away with him.

"I know," I said. I'd heard it a million times. I understood it, intellectually. But last night, when the moment had come to make Elle's real wishes come true, there hadn't been a choice. I couldn't let happiness pass Elle by just because of some paperwork. "I'm not cut out for godmothering," I said, almost as much to soothe her as myself. "It's probably best I'm getting out early before I'm on a case that matters."

She put a hand to her forehead and massaged away the hair-fine wrinkles there, then rubbed her temples like she wished she could push me right out of her thoughts. "They're all of significance, Olivia," she said, too exhausted to keep explaining this to me.

We stood in silence as the minute ticked by. The street behind us and the park in front of us slowly emptied, but I could see Imogen lingering down the street. She looked like a squirrel until I glanced over my glasses, and then she was just my best friend, sitting cross-legged on the ground with her ponytail draped over her shoulder. She gave me the thumbs-up, and I tried to be comforted. The air hung still and silent, waiting for something to happen.

And then the fountain erupted in a spray of water and blue light.

It seemed impossible that anyone for miles all around, Humdrum and Glimmer alike, could miss the Oracle's display. I'd watched the Oracle judge Tabitha from the windows before, and it had never looked like this. The light and spray was a glamour just for me. Water rushed in a torrent over one of the staggered terra cotta blocks that formed the fountain, creating a silver waterfall that showed me my own face rippling in its turbulent mirror.

"You have completed your tale."

I had never heard the Oracle's voice before, but knew instantly that it couldn't be anyone else. It had risen up from everywhere all at once, authoritative, seductive, and female. The air vibrated around me.

"Your Story has held my attention with _great_ interest, Olivia Feye," the Oracle said, putting just enough emphasis on the "great" to make me even more nervous than I was. I looked into the waterfall mirror. Wa her face or mine staring back at me?

"Olivia is only an intern, Your Honor," Lorinda said. I felt the energy in the air dismiss her, the way my dad sometimes did when I spoke out of turn. He didn't need to say or do anything; he could just glance at me and look away, and I knew I wasn't invited to the conversation. The Oracle didn't even need a glance. The breeze shifted to tell Lorinda to be quiet, and she was. Tree branches swung gently in the air behind the fountain.

I was a bug under a microscope. If I looked up at the sky I'd see all the great faeries from ages past peering down through the clouds, judging me. But when I looked up, there was nothing but overcast skies hanging low and languid. A robin sitting on a nearby tree branch cocked its head and stared, curious about what was going on and why I seemed to be at the center of it. I wished I could explain.

But I couldn't explain all of this. Not to a bird, and certainly not to the Oracle.

"You make uncommon choices," the Oracle said.

I didn't know what to say in response. Was I even supposed to say anything? I didn't know that, either.

I settled for chewing on the inside of my cheek and pressing my toes against the ground inside my shoes, tiny fidgets I hoped the Oracle couldn't see.

"You told the girl about her heritage," she said. Again, it was fact, devoid of judgment. Which was odd, coming from the one authority that had more right to judge me than any other. "How do you defend that?"

This was my chance. I scrambled for something clever to say, only to find that my mind had, for the first time since I'd woken up, fallen silent. Nothing I could say would dress up the situation and somehow trick the Oracle into thinking I was wiser than I was.

There was only the truth.

"She deserved to know, Your Honor," I said.

"On what grounds?"

The air hung heavy and expectant while I tried to tease out the reason that had sat smug in my gut but never gotten as far as my brain.

"It's part of her," I said, searching for the words even as I spoke them. "Some of us have to hide who we are." I thought about the container garden by my bedroom windows, the college brochures hidden in my nightstand underneath old notebooks, and the way unavailable, Humdrum Lucas had smiled at me last night as we danced. "It's hard to hide yourself when you know who you are. But it's got to be worse to not even know. I mean, she had to, deep down. She had to know who she was. I could tell her or I could let that sit like a splinter in her forever. And yeah, I didn't handle it the best." Beside me, Lorinda shifted and cleared her throat, but I kept talking. "At least now she gets to choose which world she wants to be part of."

Silence snaked through the air when I finished, edged by the distant hum of cars threading their way through the city, all managing to stay clear of this block and the girl talking to the fountain.

"Things were going well after that," the Oracle said. "Then you disrupted the Story. Why?"

Again, truth was the only answer. "Elle wasn't happy with Tyler. She never would be. She was happy with Kyle."

"And that's enough reason to derail a Story?" the Oracle demanded.

What did I have to lose? I'd walked into this conversation planning to have nothing when I walked back out. She couldn't take anything more from me.

I took a deep breath. "Yes," I said. "It is." Lorinda winced. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't help her now. "I know my job as a faerie godmother is to maintain balance and follow through on clients' wishes," I said. "But that's not my job as a person. I was never planning on being a godmother forever, but I _do_ have to live with myself forever. I couldn't have lived with knowing that I let someone's true love maybe pass them by because I didn't make things right. I know that's wrong. But I had to do the thing I can live with."

"Interesting," the Oracle said, almost interrupting me. A long silence followed. I shifted, feeling the urge to run taking root in my knees. This was the longest five minutes I'd ever had the misfortune to experience. Lorinda felt just as uncomfortable as I was. I wasn't sure how she could be, given that it wasn't her entire life on the line; but then, Lorinda took her job seriously. A failure on my fault was a personal failure to her. Maybe that lack of boundaries was a consequence of being so immersed in this job. Being a godmother meant ignoring that some stuff was none of your business. After so many years of being a professional nosy neighbor, Lorinda probably felt like everything was happening to her all the time.

Maybe it was good I'd be getting out when I was, assuming I could avoid being shipped off to Austria on the next available magic carpet.

"Step forward and receive your reward," the Oracle boomed. The robin took off. My heart fluttered like it was trying to do the same.

I stepped forward until I was at the edge of the fountain. I'd seen Tabitha do this part before. The water had filled itself with gold coins sticking like pennies to the floor of the fountain pool. What would it be for me?Snakes? Curses? Actual pennies, thrown in by Humdrums who didn't realize the power of a wish?

I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long breath, trying to steady my spinning stomach. When the breath was gone, pushed all out and given to the fountain, I opened my eyes, ready for whatever came.

Almost ready.

What actually sat in the water made me stumble back, my head whipping from side to side to catch the trick. But this was no illusion. Gold coins glimmered beneath the water's surface, hundreds of them ready to be scooped up.

It had to be a trap. The water would suck me under when I touched it, or curse me. But the Oracle was silent, waiting for me to try.

Heart thudding, I got on my knees and reached out, fingers trembling. I heard Imogen hiss in air from her spot on the sidewalk. I'd forgotten she was watching. We all watched, tense and waiting, as my hand stretched out toward the water. One fingertip touched the surface, any ripples it might have created lost in the motion from the falling waterfall. I didn't breathe.

And then my hand came up again, a gold coin glinting between my fingers.

I looked up to the silvery mirror, my face a blur of confusion. "I don't understand," I said.

"There's only one way Cinderella's Story ends happily," the Oracle said. "It has nothing to do with her father's wishes. For the Story to come right, Cinderella must, with the aid of her faerie godmother, go to the ball with her hero. You even managed a kiss at midnight, which I thought was a nice touch."

"It was the wrong guy," I said. "The wrong ball."

The Oracle's voice was almost as dismissive as her energy had been of Lorinda a few minutes earlier. "Details," she said. "You managed the happily ever after, which is the point. And her stepsisters were publicly humiliated, which is good for balance if not for family relationships. Her Story was, by all accounts, a resounding success."

The five minutes was up. The waterfall mirror shimmered and crashed onto itself with a raging torrent that subsided almost as quickly as it had come. The fountain burbled quietly. The Oracle's presence was gone, and birds began singing in the trees again. A car drove behind us as I stared into the water.

The gold coins were still there. I hadn't been punished or cursed. I still had my college money, and, judging from the bewildered look on Lorinda's face, I might even have my job.

"Pick those up," Lorinda said finally. Her round blue eyes mirrored my shock. She waved her hands, as flustered as I was frozen. "No point in the Humdrums seeing all that and running off with it." She got down awkwardly to her knees and helped me scoop the coins out of the cool water, muttering to herself the whole time. I didn't ask her to speak up. I couldn't process another thing.

Imogen's mouth hung open as we walked past, my shirt held out and billowing with heavy gold coins. I hadn't even thought to bring a bag to carry them. I hadn't thought I'd be taking anything away from this, except maybe a heavy dose of shame.

The elevator door dinged. We stepped inside. I could hear both of us breathing over the soft creaks. When the doors opened again, Lorinda stopped and turned to me. "That was unexpected," she said, which was the most obvious thing I'd heard all day. "I must say, I did not anticipate…" She trailed off, staring at me. She worshipped the Oracle. And the Oracle letting me off without so much as a warning—and with a shirt full of gold—threw her worldview for a loop.

She blinked at me several times before shaking her head and saying, in a bright tone to balance out the confusion she must know poured off of her, "Look like you might be offered a Junior Godmother job after you graduate next year after all. So long as you keep up the good work."

My brain didn't have room for that. It was already stuffed full of the knowledge that I'd failed, wasn't cut out for this, and deserved to be ruined by the Oracle. Now I was supposed to handle "Good work"?

I frowned at Lorinda. "I think I'm going to go home early," I finally said.

Her shoulders relaxed a little. "I think that's a good idea," she said. She gave me a little wave as I hit the main floor button with my elbow. In a moment I was out the door and into the warm gray light of ten minutes after noon.


	29. Chapter 29

"So I'm probably going to spend the summer still working and maybe fit in some volunteering at a local community garden if I have time," I finished, but Kyle wasn't listening. To be honest, neither was I. We'd both been keeping an ear on Elle's conversation with her dad. They sat across a table from each other across the room, sipping Italian sodas. For the first time since I'd met her, they both felt like they wanted to be there.

"I think that's fair," Greg said. He leaned back in his chair. "I didn't realize how serious you were about buying the place."

Elle raised an eyebrow. "Just a teenage phase, right?"

"I underestimated you," he said. He pulled the papers on the table toward him and gave an approving nod. Kyle's pride swelled next to me. He'd helped her draw those paper up, a comprehensive business plan that showed exactly how Elle was going to run the business the way she wanted and still turn a profit. "To tell you the truth, I thought the whole thing was just you trying to remind Deborah and I how much you don't approve of us."

Elle took it in stride. "I don't like all your choices," she said, managing to make it sound like a fact instead of an accusation. "But it's not my business who you marry. It's not my decision. I'm with you till I'm eighteen. She's who you're going to spend the rest of your life with."

"You're still in that picture, Elle," Greg said. He put a hand out on the table.

"I know," Elle said. She squeezed her frosted glass. "We're still family. I just mean I'm not going to live with you forever. We don't even belong in the same world, Dad."

Greg watched her for a long moment, pursing his lips and debating whether to argue. Then he sighed and said, "You belong in your mother's world."

"Makes a lot of things make sense, doesn't it?" Elle said. She was smiling a little, the way people did when they were finally distant enough from something to laugh at it. "No wonder I never fit in." She fingered the crystal necklace, still the only ornament she wore. She glanced across the room and her gaze met Kyle's. Warmth and happiness rolled off both of them, and it made me smile, too. The Oracle's confusing approval aside, I'd done a good thing there.

"It's a good plan," Greg said. He picked up one of the papers, scanned a few lines, then looked over it at Elle. "Marketing this place to your community. It's a great idea."

"Kyle says there aren't enough hangouts for people our age," she said. "A few nightclubs, but that's it. This will be a place people can get together to hang out and study during the day, and we'll be doing everything right. I got a quote on coffee beans and we'll come in under budget." She gestured at the paper, but he was too busy looking at her now.

"I'm really proud of you, Elle," Greg said. He was such a soft dad type that hearing it from him seemed normal to me, but Elle's eyes immediately filled with tears.

"Thanks," she muttered. She blinked and became suddenly interested in shuffling the papers around to find the budget.

For the first time since I'd seen their relationship, he seemed to notice how she was feeling and do something about it. He put a hand on the glass, over hers. "One year," he said.

That was the deal she'd proposed: One year to run Pumpkin Spice and show she could handle it, and then she'd be able to buy the business from him. She'd promised to pay for the whole thing just like anyone else would, but he'd insisted on giving it to her at a steep discount, saying he'd make enough from the deal to focus on his side businesses. It turned out he ran a food cart and a hair salon on top of the cafe. For such a quiet, laid-back guy, he ended up being pretty savvy. And if she couldn't keep the business on its feet, she'd promised to stop sabotaging the place, which was the reason he'd come to Wishes Fulfilled with his ridiculous prom night request in the first place. It was a good deal for everyone.

"One year," Elle agreed. She rubbed the back of her neck, restless. I could tell she was itching to get started.

Kyle drummed the table with his fingers. "I think that's my cue," he said. He gave me a dorky high-five before heading across the room. He'd made sure this deal would go down on paper, and he was signing as Elle's co-investor. Normally I would have warned a new couple against going into business together first thing, but I wasn't worried. They'd be fine.

I was still watching them all talk together half an hour later, with their heads bent over the table, when Imogen tapped me on the shoulder and slid into Kyle's vacated seat. She had the vibrant smile of someone whose month had gone off without a hitch.

"It's my anniversary!" she announced. "Prom was a month ago today and we're better than ever."

This wouldn't have been an accomplishment for most people. For Imogen, it kind of was. Her relationships tended to last two weeks if they ever earned the title of "relationship" at all, and then it was on to the next boy who fell under her charms.

I was glad I was a girl. We never would have been able to be friends otherwise.

She looked across the room at Elle and tilted her head. "They worked it out, huh?" she said.

"I think so," I said.

"I still can't believe you and Kyle didn't hook up. Leave it to you to use prom to conduct business."

"I'm a faerie godmother, Gen," I said. "Proms and balls are our trading floor."

Her eyes flashed with something that looked suspiciously like victory.

"What?" I said.

"You just called yourself a faerie godmother," she said. "With no hint of irony."

She was right. I had. I frowned, trying to digest.

But it was okay. It still wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, but looking across the room at the way Elle explained her plans for creating study tables and a free lending library while Greg nodded and Kyle gazed at her in pure admiration, I realized granting wishes wasn't a bad way to spend a couple years before college. I'd rather be somewhere studying flowers and studying conservation management, of course, but that could come later. For now, it was kind of amazing to have a job where "success" meant actually making people's dreams come true.

Who knew? Maybe I was even good at it.

* * *

Author's Note: Stay tuned! One more chapter to go. :)


	30. Chapter 30

Tabitha returned to work on the last day of July. By that time, Elle's case was all wrapped up. The Oracle hadn't demanded the gold back, and it rested in a comfortable pile in the enchanted safe hidden under my bed. Things were back to normal at Wishes Enchanted.

Imogen and I spent the first Saturday in August at the Saturday Market. It was strange to think that it had only been a few months since I'd made the colossal misstep of introducing Elle to the charms booth, but I couldn't regret anything that had happened in those months. I had done an okay job on a case, made a few new friends, set Elle up with the guy of her nerdy dreams, and gotten to know a guy of my own, even if he wasn't exactly available.

"My dad's barely yelled at us since Elle's case wrapped," I said, gently squeezing some tomatoes in a vegetable stall to see if they were ripe. I could practically live on raw, fresh tomatoes in the summer. "I even told him Daniel's taken an interest in godparenting. Dad thinks he's shadowing me. He's in a performance every other week now.

"Aw," Imogen said, putting her hand on her heart and making a syrupy sweet face at me. "Lying for your little brother! Presh."

It was kind of sweet, Imogen's sarcasm aside. He'd actually invited me to one of his performances at a park _and_ made eye contact with me after.

Imogen updated me on the latest from her sister's wedding while I paid for the tomatoes and followed her out from under the tent and back into the blazing sunlight. Sun felt weird on my shoulders after so many months of drizzly cold. My skin soaked it up, throwing an all-you-can-eat Vitamin D party like it would never get another chance.

"Apparently she has to move locations because she was supposed to have her wedding at some bird enclosure—I am not even kidding you right now—but they had to close it down because a bunch of weird accidents kept happening," Imogen said. She turned the simple gesture of rolling her eyes into an extravagant performance. "Some idiot kids were probably sneaking in at night but then a couple employees started saying it was 'haunted.' And then one of them got hit in the head by a shovel or something, and so now they've closed the whole thing down for 'Safety First Training,' which means Maia and the ornithologist stalker are having a cow trying to find a new place that 'represents them as a couple_._'" I didn't think it was possible for more sarcasm to drip off someone's words.

But the sarcasm didn't hold my attention for more than a second.

"Haunted?" I said.

I'd forgotten in the thrill of Elle's Story and the relief that had come with Tabitha's return and summer, but now it all flooded back: Someone had been messing with Humdrum places all around town, making them seem haunted. Someone was trying to scare the Humdrums and the Faerie Queen and my dad combined hadn't been able to figure out how to stop them.

I couldn't imagine who would want to attack Humdrums in a place like this. They provided us with cover, and—much as some Glimmers didn't want to admit it—they also provided us with all kinds of services. They flipped our burgers, fixed our computers, unclogged our toilets, and got food from farms to our tables, just like they did for everyone else. Without Humdrums, the city wouldn't be half of what it was. We wouldn't be able to keep up the veneer of normal, and then it would be the disaster my dad always warned us about: a world of us versus them, scientists experimenting on us, Glimmers being forced to use their gifts on behalf of the military in all the wars we tried to avoid.

I was about to explain all of this to Imogen when I was distracted by the weirdest thing I'd seen all summer. Lorinda from Wishes Fulfilled was walking toward us, wearing faded blue jeans and carrying a bag of green onions and kale over her arm. I grabbed Imogen's arm.

"That is not even right," Imogen had time to say before Lorinda reached us.

"Hello, ladies!" she said. Her voice was friendly, but it took me a second to process that she was talking to us. Seeing her outside of Wishes Fulfilled was weirder than seeing a teacher outside of school.

After a second collecting myself, I echoed Imogen's overly bright "Hi!"

"Isn't it a gorgeous day?" Lorinda said.

Imogen shot me a nanosecond-long look that said, _Really? We__'__re going to do small talk?_ before answering, "Yeah, the weather's been great this last week."

The weather had been great all month. It was always great in July and August. But what else were we supposed to talk to Lorinda about? I'd never spoken with her about anything but work, and I had no idea where to start now. I was trying to come up with something to say when she turned to me and said, "Olivia, I'm so glad I ran into you. Tabitha's obviously doing great, but she's going to stay off cases that involve a lot of field work for the next little while."

One of Tabitha's legs was still in a cast. Her Glimmering physician had advised her to take it easy, so this seemed like a wise decision. It meant I spent most of my time filing papers instead of running all over Portland after some girl whose dreams I was trying to make come true, but that was all right. Whenever I started missing Elle's case—which seemed to be a lot lately—I just reminded myself that I was paid just fine for shuffling papers around the office. That was why I was there, after all. I didn't need a godmother to make my own dreams come true. I just needed enough cash to get me through a few semesters.

"We just got another case that's going to require a lot of legwork, though," Lorinda said. "The Processing department thinks it's going to bring in some considerable gold for the godmother and the agency, but we don't have anyone experienced who has room to take it on right now."

"That's too bad," I said. I glanced past her shoulder at a stall selling butter toffee mixed nuts. It was the weekend. This was my time. I didn't want to spend it talking about work.

I was looking for a graceful exit from the conversation when Lorinda took me completely off guard. "The case is yours if you want it."

Imogen stiffened next to me, and I did a double take to make sure Lorinda was serious. She seemed to be. Despite the blue jeans and fresh produce, there wasn't anything especially casual about her expression. She looked exactly like she did at work whenever she asked if I had time to run a dozen extra copies for a presentation.

"I thought you wanted someone experienced," I said.

"That is always the ideal," she said. "Unfortunately, we don't have time to wait around for ideals right now. I think you'll find the case to be educational, if nothing else. It's for a mermaid living in the Willamette."

I glanced toward the riverfront, which lay placid and dark in the summer sun. Boats lined its banks, but I knew there was a whole world underneath its calm surface most people knew nothing about. "What's the wish?" I said.

"It's about a boy, of course," Lorinda said. "But I think there's some flexibility in how she gets the wish. We can't turn it down. Her father is the king of this region of the Pacific."

Princes were a dime a dozen in our world, but most of their titles didn't count for anything. But the daughter of a reigning Pacific king? That was another game entirely. I glanced over to Imogen, who looked as taken off guard as I was.

"The results of her wish coming true are a little slim," Lorinda said. "She's a Little Mermaid archetype, and Tatiana only knows how those end up." We all knew. Little Mermaid stories ended in a kiss or a death. There wasn't much in between, and I wasn't too eager to mess around with the "death" possibility. "In the second, he's a Humdrum. So it's just never going to happen. I thought someone with your talent for bending the rules might be able to bring the case to a happy compromise." She eyed me, gaze suddenly sharp.

Here it finally was, the chastisement for slipping Elle's story past the Oracle. I didn't think I could tell Lorinda that I'd done the whole thing on the expectation I'd be fired. Did anyone really want me to go into another case with that attitude?

"There will be a substantial bonus," she said.

"I'll think about it," I said. I knew I was supposed to say "yes," but how could I possibly agree to something like this?

She hadn't given up. She pasted on a smile that only looked a little forced and said, "How about you let me know in the next week or two?"

With business conducted, she asked how my parents were doing—they were fine—and whether Imogen had been able to get her personal statement written for her early application to Institut Glanz—she had, and I was pleasantly surprised that Lorinda knew about it or cared. These duties done, she wished us an "excellent weekend" and left. Imogen and I flooded with relief that I hoped Lorinda couldn't feel as she walked away.

"Too weird," Imogen said, stating the obvious like a pro. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the backlit screen. "You'd better get going, Liv," she said. "Almost eleven."

My phone said 10:53. I was supposed to meet Lucas at Elle's new gourmet coffee bean stall in seven minutes.

Aubrey hadn't dumped him over prom like I'd secretly hoped. Instead, she'd apologized and said she was being unfair. This step, while noble and mature, made me dislike her even more. But I didn't mention that to Lucas, so we kept hanging out like we always had. A tiny, tantalizing current of tension hung between us whenever we were together, but he was too much of a gentleman and a good boyfriend to notice it, and I was trying to, as Imogen said, "not be one of _those_ faeries." She didn't have much room to talk, seeing as how she'd stolen at least two girls' boyfriends since we'd started high school, but I was determined to take the high road. I would be Lucas' friend—and only his friend—until he had another slot open.

Imogen gave me a quick hug and then took off for a mandatory "bridesmaids' bonding lunch!" I made my way alone across the market, trying to admire the items for sale in the stalls I passed but not seeing anything but Lucas' face in my mind.

I saw him outside the coffee bean stall before he saw me. He was talking to Elle, who almost glowed as she rearranged bags of coffee beans and handed out tiny cups of espresso to potential customers. My heart skipped a beat. I was about to take another step toward him when something light but sharp hit my forehead and tumbled to the ground.

I put a hand to my head before I realized whatever had hit me didn't hurt. I looked down to see a paper airplane struggling on the ground like a bird with a broken wing. I bent and grabbed it before any of the Humdrums noticed it was moving.

The moment I touched the distantly familiar paper, everything fled my mind, even Lucas. I unfolded it so quickly the edge tore a little where it had been folded. I smoothed it out and forced myself to breathe like a calm person.

The handwriting was Queen Amani's, and the message was urgent.

_Meet me underneath the Chinatown archway in half an hour_. _I need you._

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I couldn't tell Lucas in person; my heart beat fast enough that he'd think something was wrong. Something probably was, for the Faerie Queen to show up again after months of normal, blessed silence. I pulled out my phone, my hands trembling.

_Olivia: I__'__m so sorry. I can__'__t make it. Family emergency came up._

I'd make the emergency up later. I waited long enough to see him pull his phone from his pocket, read the message, and frown. And then I was gone, headed north as fast as my legs would take me.

The Faerie Queen was calling. And somehow, even with Lucas pulling me in the other direction, I couldn't say no.

THE END...

FOR NOW.

A/N: Thanks for reading! You guys are amazing and it's been so fun to share Olivia and the Glimmering world with you.

I'm hard at work on the next book, so stay tuned. You can find my website by googling my name, and can also find and friend me on Facebook.

I'm currently hard at work on the next novel in the Portland Glimmers series. If you have any input, there's no better time to share! What parts of this book made you go, "Ooh, show me more of that!" Are there any characters you'd like to get to know better? Any fairy tales you'd just love to see Olivia tackle? Readers are the most important part of any story, so let me know if there's anything I simply must write about and I'll see what I can do. ;)

You guys are totally fabulous. Thanks for adventuring with me!

**Update 9/20/16: _Glimmers of Glass_ is now available on Amazon and iBooks. _Glimmers of Scales_ will be released in October 2016 and _Glimmers of Thorns_ will be released in November 2016. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review here and/or on one of those platforms. Thanks for your support!**


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